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PSYCHISM. 



PSYCHISM 

/ 

Analysis of Things Existing 



ESSAYS 

/ BY 

PAUL G1BIER, M. D. 

Director of the New York Pasteur Institute. 

Late Assistant Professor to the Museum of Natural Philosophy of Paris, (Com- 

parative and Experimental Medicine,) ; Late Interne of the Hospitals of Paris ; 

Member of the Academy of Sciences of New York ; Member of the 

Society for Psychical Research of London ; etc., etc 



THIRD EDITION. 



New York. 

BULLETIN PUBLISHING CO., 

313 West 23rd Street, 






\ 









31205 

Copyright, 1899. 



COPSES RECEIVED. 



1899 



ismi "at 



• v ^ 






sL 

J. 

1 

I 



To those who seek TRUTH, 

I dedicate this book* 



INTRODUCTION. 



Under the cover of scientific conservatism it 
is the general tendency of men who have at- 
tained a certain position in universities and 
scientific societies to bar the way to any matters 
too strikingly diverging — according to their 
views — from the ordinary trend of observation. 
This is especially true of psychic phenomena. 
Although the latter may safely be placed at the 
head of the most interesting subjects soliciting 
man's attention, yet they do not appear to have 
attained the required degree of respectability 
for their introduction to the scientific societies 
and journals where the gentlemen alluded to, 
exercise their pontifical functions. 

For this reason the investigator who is con- 
vinced of having matters of interest to com- 
municate, must, in order to force his way to 
the attention of the public — general and spe- 
cial — resort to the publication of a book, 
wherein he may at liberty, on his own respon- 



8 PSYCHISM. 



sibility and to the full extent of his thought, if 
he so chooses, state aught which he considers 
worth writing. This is precisely the raison 
d'Ure of the present book. 

In 1886 the author (who then held an official 
position in one of the highest scientific Govern- 
ment institutions in Paris) published the 
result of his first researches in Experimental 
Psychology (Spiritisme ou Fakirisme occiden- 
tal). The book, which had a fair amount of 
success among the general public, was not, we 
must say, received as well in the so-called 
scientific spheres. Its author's reward was the 
general disfavor with which he met among his 
superiors and colleagues. Since then, opinions 
have changed, ideas progressed, and the same 
writer has had the pleasure of seeing his work 
quoted, even by former opponents, and so to 
say, become classical. 

Encouraged by this result — which he had 
foreseen — the author, who refrained for some 
time from expressing opinions or theories rela- 
tive to the psychic facts which he had been, 
and is still, observing daily, has gone a step 
further and writes on that which, in his opin- 
ion, may be the rationale of these phenomena. 
He sees in the latter the possible explanation 
of the Universe, and the Life which animates 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 9 



it. It is the summary of his reflections and in- 
vestigations of fifteen years, through hypnotic 
subjects and mediums, which is now submitted 
to the appreciation of the English speaking 

public (i). 

* * * 

Most of the pages found in this volume have 
been written twelve years before their publica- 
tion in English. This delay was due to per- 
sonal reasons, and the manuscript quietly re- 
mained waiting until the author deemed the 
time auspicious to put it in print. 

When these essays were written, the subject 
of which they treat was still strongly contested; 
indeed, it is yet, but in a much lesser degree, 
and the time is fast approaching when a lack 
of knowledge of its tenor will be considered as 
gross ignorance. It is the opinion of the 
author that this is a matter with which, 
through force of circumstances, every one will 
be familiar before the twentieth century attains 
its period of adolescence. A great many 
scientists are cognizant of the question; the 
clergy becomes more and more interested in 
it, and several have held dissertations on it 

(1) The subject has been treated in French, un- 
der the title of Analyse des Glioses, by the author. 



10 PSYCHISM. 



from the pulpit. Now, it must be stated that 
psychical matters are of such a nature that 
they may be compared to a set of powerful 
cog-wheels in motion ; once the fingers are 
caught in the teeth, the whole body is 
drawn in. The movement cannot be stopped 
at present, and scientists, clergymen, and 
philosophers of all schools will soon be bound 
to come, volens nolens, to an understanding 
with regard to psychic phenomena. It is true 
that the question would be advanced some 
twenty-five years or more if it had not been 
for the numerous frauds which have kept 
many experimenters from investigating and 
publishing the results of their researches. But 
it behooves us to sift the grain from the chaff, 
i. e., the genuine from the spurious, in order 
to bring truth from its hidden recesses. 

It has been said above, that in psychic 
phenomena a possible explanation of the Uni- 
verse might be foreseen. Is this not too rash 
an assertion, and is not the expression of this 
expectation by far too unscientific? We 
think not, for the aim of science, as pointed 
out by Huxley and other savants of his school, 
is nothing short of a complete explanation of 
the Universe, although they admit the goal 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 11 

beyond the reach of human entendement lim- 
ited to its present attributes. 

It may seem preposterous to bring the name 
of the god-father of Agnosticism in the defense 
of a theory apparently so distant from that 
doctrine. Again, we deny it: Agnosticism and 
Evolutionism are two divinities ordinarily 
worshipped on the same altar, and the agnostic 
must be ready to see his store of admissions 
constantly modified, enlarged, according to the 
evolution of knowledge. Agnosticism, in fact, 
is but a state of mind in which convictions are 
based on knowledge and not on faith. This 
is the ground on which we claim to stand. Of 
course, imagination is a faculty through which 
we are entitled to build a temporary scaffold- 
ing for a working hypothesis; still, the latter 
must be erected on solid ground. Again, this 
is what we claim to be doing. 

In reality, neither Huxley (2) nor Tyndall 
(3) were consistent with their teachings in 
denying the existence of, and scorning psychic 
phenomena, a subject which they had not in- 

(2) Science and Hebrew Tradition, p. 12. 

(3) Science and the Spirits. (Fragments of 
Science, Vol. I.) Belfast Address. The Rev. J. Mar- 
tineau and the Belfast Address. (Fragments of 
Science, Vol. II.) 



12 PSYCHISM. 



vestigated. They failed to steer their bark ac- 
cording to their own beacon. They did not 
hold to that which Huxley termed "that 
scientific ars artium, the art of saying "I don't 
know" (4), and the facts are the reefs on 
which the inconsistency of their attitude was 
wrecked ; for facts exist. 

"Psychism" is a relatively new branch of 
science, which consists in the study of the mani- 
festations of the soul ( ipvxv ) before and 
after death. We wrote "relatively new branch 
of science," for we have never had the pretention 
of presenting a new ism. As Mephistopheles 
says: "He but a fool or ignoramus who fancies 
himself the originator of an idea." 

This book has no pretence to be didactic; it 
may be considered as a collection of thoughts 
and reflections, in short, essays arranged in 
chapters. The only aim of the author, in pub- 
lishing it, is to promulgate the cause of good 
and to be instrumental in upholding a scientific 
truth which, in the light of his experience as 
physician and philosopher, he considers as the 
most capable of elevating the nature of man. 



(4) Geological Contemporaneity. 



PART I. 

VIEWS OF THINGS IN GENERAL. 



CHAPTER I. 

Summary: The path to be followed in the study 
of things. — Study of the Macrocosm. — Periodical Cat- 
aclysms. — Movements of waters and ice from one to 
the other hemisphere. — Deluges. — A comparison be- 
tween the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres. — 
Alternative layers of marine fossils separated by fos- 
sils of the aerial existence. — What is matter? — The 
unextended atom. — Energy. — The law of indestructi- 
bility of matter. — Atoms are fluid elements. — Penetra- 
bility of matter. — The prodigiously energetic motions 
of molecules. — Atoms. — Vortices. — The Universe tends 
towards absolute repose. — According to a number of 
modern scientists the philosophical analysis of mat- 
ter, assisted by experiments, shows that it is but com- 
pacted energy in a transitory form. — The most power- 
ful form of illusion is termed reality. 

This book bears as its title, "Psychism. — 
Analysis of Things Existing." It is a heading 
passing great, encompassing fields most vast, 
and may appear pretentious for so small a 
volume; but we hope to justify it, and will en- 



14 PSYCHISM. 



deavor to sketch clearly, yet succinctly, an 
analysis of our subject — the Universe — of 
which we form a part. 

■ 

Let him who all unmindful of the great 
problems of life and death, whose soul has 
never risen above common places, pursue the 
even tenor of his way; this book is not for 
him, nor yet has it been written for those who 
place the boundary of science according to the 
line of their own limited knowledge; but for 
the few who ask of themselves: "Why are we 
living on this planet, and by what force have 
we been brought to it ?" We beg of the latter to 
concentrate thought, to isolate it so far as pos- 
sible from external objects, to abmaterialize it, 
as it were, in order to pursue the flight we are 
about to take. 

Our itinerary will be as follows: Casting 
aside the power of attraction which binds us 
to Earth, and, while leaving our planet, we 
will, with the mind's eye, make a cursory ex- 
amination of its surface. First, we will take a 
portion of the substance of which it is formed 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 15 

and endeavor to discern its component parts. 
In a word, we will start from the atom and 
with gigantic strides scale the immensity which 
leads to the Macrocosm. Returning to our 
planetisphere, we will seek the epitome of the 
Universe, or so-called Microcosm, and, in 
studying its anatomy and physiology, compare 
it with that of its model. While making our 
titanic excursion through the boundless realms 
of Ether, we shall pause for a moment and 
seek the third principle, the true Being, which, 
with Matter and Energy, constitutes the ani- 
mated Universe. This principle in man, which 
is the proof of his independence and continu- 
ance outside of matter, will be the chief object 

of our work. 

* * * 

We are aware that certain scientists hold 
that each earthly period of twenty-five thou- 
sand and some hundred years, periods which 
are determined by the astronomical phenomenon 
known as the precession of the equinoxes, wit- 
nesses the most fearful cataclysms. They base 



16 PSYCHISM. 



their belief partly upon the shape of the earth 
and oceans, as well as upon certain traditions 
of engulfed continents. These occurrences, as 
we may see in our soarings through space, in- 
terest only the races inhabiting this earth, for 
we well understand they are totally unperceived 
by even our nearest planetary neighbors, the 
inhabitants of Mars, unless indeed their knowl- 
edge of optical science is more advanced than 
ours. The manner in which these cata- 
clysms are supposed to occur is as follows: by 
reason of the change of inclination of the polar 
axis, the earth presents itself before its great 
magnet, the Sun, so as to displace its own cen- 
ter of attraction, which then passes from one 
side of the terrestrial equator to the other 
hemisphere. This results in the disturbance of 
waters which, by reason of their fluidity, have 
a natural tendency to run towards the point 
to which they are most strongly attracted, in an 
all overpowering tidal wave. 

If this were all there might not follow such 
terrible devastation. As the level of the waters 
diminishes at the uplifted pole as well as else- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 17 

where, the huge ice-cap which covers it is 
rent, being no longer upheld by the waters. 
These accumulations of ice at either the arctic 
or antarctic pole, which may tower miles in 
height, are overthrown owing to the with- 
drawal of the waters, and a stupendous break- 
ing up follows; blocks of ice as large as em- 
pires, as colossal as so many Himalayas, tumble 
over each other, fall and drive away the waters 
rushing with them, tearing away continents, and 
carrying along masses of boulders which man 
later on calls erratic. The salt sea submerges 
everything except, perhaps, a few lofty summits 
and plateaux. And after, when the great si- 
lence has become established over ancient con- 
tinents, buried at the bottom of the briny seas 
with all that they bear, new lands spring up, 
muddy, covered with a salty ooze and foreign 
weeds, like unto hideous marine monsters, 
which suddenly emerge from the bosom of 
troubled floods and show themselves in full 
sight of the awe-stricken skies. 

Thus these new lands present themselves to 
those who have survived the general fate, the 



18 PSYCHISM. 



memory of which will be traditional and handed 
down, through stories of deluges that one may 
find in all sacred books of ancient religions. 

Cast your eye upon the earthly globe, say 
the partisans of this diluvian theory, and behold 
how greatly the southern differs from the 
northern hemisphere. In the latter you see 
nought but lands, while toward the south 
waters are predominant; they are accumulated 
thither. High plateaux and mountain tops un- 
der the form of islands are seen there in num- 
bers. Moreover, all the continents, both Amer- 
icas, Africa and the great Indo-Chinese penin- 
sulas end in a point toward the south pole to 
which the waters have retired. And the Atlan- 
tis, which Plato illustrated, the remembrance of 
which has been carried along through ages, 
what has become of it if it has not, like other 
continents, been swallowed up by the sea? 
What, add they, do these alternating and super- 
posed layers of marine and telluric fossils 
which we find in our fields and even on the 
mountain tops prove if not that the sun once 
shone at the same point in successive aeons 
upon life-teeming ocean and continent? 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 19 

Thus is briefly stated, the catastrophe theory 
of cataclysms through which some geological 
changes have been explained. However, we 
know that modern science, without denying the 
possibility and even the existence of local or 
partial catastrophism, holds that it must be ad- 
mitted that for ages the changes, traces of 
which are observed in the crust of the earth, 
have taken place much in the same manner as 
we now witness, i. e., slowly, insensibly but con- 
tinuously. (Evolutionism.) Reality, at first 
though less impressive, nevertheless is still ful- 
ler of grandeur, if we consider the stupendous 
amount of time required for the evolution of 
such extensive phenomena (6). 

But let us put aside this subject, which is of 
lesser import from our standpoint, and, as 

(6) In modern times Kant, in his Sdmmtliche 
Werke (1775), was the first to call attention to the 
fact that sea and land had alternately occupied the 
same points of earth. 

As Huxley (Discourses Biological and Geological) 
points out, Kant was not only a great metaphysician, 
but also a scientist of vast erudition. Geologically, 
h« was the first to hold the theory of evolution. 



20 PSYCHISM. 



thought now floats, as it were, above the ter- 
restrial surface, we have nothing to fear from 
the great periodical diluvian cataclysms; for 
these cannot trouble us in our search for the 
Absolute, and we can well understand how 
Archimedes, fearless and withdrawn by thought 
from the paltry things which surrounded him, 
allowed himself to be slain by a brutish Roman 
soldier. 

Let us then begin our study of the Macro- 
cosm. Philosophical analysis and the atomic 
theory, as well as that of equivalents, having 
been deduced from the determined and constant 
proportions which bodies bear among them- 
selves in their combinations, lead us to consider 
Matter as being composed of exceedingly mi- 
nute elements, grouped together in various 
ways. These elements are called molecules. 
But analysis goes further; these molecules, 
however small we may imagine them, are them- 
selves made up of a number of other indivisible 
elements, as is indicated by their name; these 
elements of the molecules are called atoms. If 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 21 

to the question, "What is matter?" we answer 
that it is something- which we can touch and 
see, but which is formed of parts that have ma- 
terially no existence. We believe many would be 
astonished at our reply. And yet, this is the 
definition given and sustained by men most 
eminent, who are upholders of the theory known 
as that of the unextended atom. 

We are not positive whether this subject has 
been discussed by the ancient philosophers of 
Greece, but it is found, symbolically expressed, 
in the Hindoo philosophies. Be that as it may, 
we know that it was advanced about the mid- 
dle of the last century by Father Boscowitch 
and by such scientists as Ampere, Faraday, 
Cauchy and others. Among the philosophers 
who have championed this theory may be men- 
tioned Dugald-Stewart, Victor Cousin and 
Vacherot (7). The unextended atom theory 
must not be confounded with the one advanced 
and sustained by Hume, Berkeley Hamilton, 
Stuart Mill, Coyteux and others, according to 

(7) See Revue des Deux Mondes, August, 1876. 



22 PSY'CHISM. 



which nothing exists. Georgias of Leontium, 
the celebrated sophist, taught the doctrine of 
the non-existence of things, more than four 
hundred years before our era. 

What is the atom, then? A mathematical 
fiction? No, but the elements of Matter seem 
to be one and similar for all bodies; so say 
alchemists who are seeking transmutation. It 
may be that at such a degree of minuteness 
Matter loses, as it were, its materiality and is 
merged into Energy. To this subject we will 
return later. 

Whatever be its nature, according to the 
great law of conservation of Matter, as definite- 
ly established by Lavoisier, the atom does not 
change nor does it perish ; notwithstanding its 
movements and perpetual migrations it is in- 
destructible and invariable. It is naught but a 
fluid, cyclical, gyratory element of the universal 
fluid whereof matter is formed. (Helmoltz, 
William Thomson, Tait.) 

Is energy, which animates atoms with a mo- 
tion so rapid that imagination cannot grasp it, 
the real agent which establishes the molecule, 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 23 

and does the latter represent aught but com- 
pacted Energy? Pure theory! At any rate, 
the physicists now agree in considering the 
hardest bodies as presenting in appearance only 
a continuous surface: for example, if we take a 
hollow silver sphere filled with water,, hermeti- 
cally sealed, the water will escape through all 
the pores of the metal if the sphere is struck 
with a hammer on an anvil. At every stroke of 
the hammer the water will form in tiny pearls 
at the surface of the metal. (Experiment of 
the Florentine Academicians.) Other facts 
prove to us that the idea of the impenetrability 
of matter is absolutely false. . . . Without 
speaking of two equal parts of water and alco- 
hol, which, when mixed together, result in a quan- 
tity of liquid less in volume than the combined 
quantities of the two liquids taken separately 
(for it may be that in this case there is a va- 
riety of combination), we may also mention here 
the strange, mysterious but no less persistent facts 
of penetrability produced under the influence of 
psychic force, such as two rings, one of glass, 
the other of ivory, that may be rudely linked to- 



24 PSYCHISM. 



gether without the trace of a solution of con- 
tinuity. It is in the existence of these phenom- 
ena produced in his presence that Zoellner saw 
a possible demonstration of the fourth dimen- 
sion of space. These facts, we repeat, ably prove 
the penetrability of bodies, and also their "de- 
molecularization" and their possible reconstitu- 
tion ad integrum, under the influence of certain 
forces which science will shortly make one of 
its principal objects of investigation. 

The volume of molecules can at the most be 
counted in millionth part of a millimeter, and 
even if we take into account the relatively ex- 
tended space which separates them from each 
other, it would be by trillions, quintillions and 
sextillions that we could calculate the number 
contained in a cubic millimeter. They are in a 
state of agitation, of projection, of violent 
shocks or energetic attractions and repulsions 
of which the motion of microscopical particles 
doubtless gives us but a faint picture. One 
may form an idea of their amazing whirling 
when one sees that hydrogen, at the ordinary 
pressure and temperature, shows a speed of its 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 25 

molecules of about two thousand meters per sec- 
ond (Joule), and that each one suffers on the 
part of its neighbors about seventeen billion 
shocks during the same period. (Clausius, 
Maxwell, Boltzmann.) "It is the bombard- 
ment operated by this multitude of small pro- 
jectiles against the surrounding bodies which 
constitutes the tension of gases," says Mr. Jouf- 
fret, in a remarkable work (8) on the nature 
of matter. 

Each molecule formed of a multitude of 
atom-vortices is now considered by scientists, 
as it was long ago by the "initiated" of India 
and Egypt, viz., as a planetary system with all 
its complications of motion and life, a life di- 
rected, according to the pundits of the India 
of to-day, by the elementary intelligences of 
an inferior nature (elementals). The bodies, 
which are accumulations of molecules, would 
therefore be analogous to the milky way and 
the resolvable nebulae. 

In short, if we take a microscopical particle 

(8) Jouffret, Introduction a V Etude de VEner- 
gie. Paris, 1883. Gauthier-Villars, pub. 



26 PSYCHISM. 



of matter, and divide it in thought many thou- 
sand times, we will obtain a molecule which 
could be seen through our microscopes were 
their magnifying power intensified a thousand- 
fold. This molecule, as we perceive it, is but 
an agglomeration of atoms which may be con- 
sidered as whirling elements, circles of energy, 
producing by their various movements the 
divers appearances of matter. A particle of 
dynamite, wherein is stored an enormous quan- 
tity of mechanical energy, may be taken as a 
rough presentment of the molecule, as it is con- 
sidered according to scientific theories, vis. : by 
comparing the mechanical energy of dynamite 
to the compacted energy of matter, and the 
gases which are indirectly condensed by chem- 
ical processes within the dynamite to the 
agencied Ether which exists under the form of 
atoms within the molecule. Hence, matter may 
be nothing but one of the appearances of energy. 
In view of the aforegoing analysis of matter 
and of the results to which it leads us, are we 
not forced to admit with Hume, Berkeley, Ham- 
ilton, Stuart Mill, Coyteux and others that 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 27 

nothing really exists? If there was nothing but 
matter and energy in the world we would 
answer in the affirmative, for energy itself, as 
we shall again see later on, tends not to dis- 
appear but to rest "on the Seventh Day," and 
instead of dynamic to become purely potential. 
In other words, the Universe leans toward ab- 
solute rest. 

At the conclusion of this summary study, 
which has led us, in thought, within the depths 
of the infinitely small, let us frankly state our 
opinion. Notwithstanding the disturbance 
which these conclusions of modern science upon 
the nature of matter may have brought to our 
mind, we do not advocate the adoption of the 
theory of which we have just spoken. How- 
ever, in the face of these studies which show 
us things under an aspect so different, we are 
constrained to admit that we are unceasingly 
deceived by general appearances. And thus, 
knowing as we do the imperfection and un- 
reliability of our senses, we may advance as a 
manner of axiom that the strongest illusion is 
that which we call reality. 



CHAPTER II. 

Summary: The general interdependence of things. 
— The science of the ancients was vast and deep; 
modern discoveries show it. — Why they did not popu- 
larize it. — The necessity of uplifting one's thought in 
order to obtain a fair idea of things. — What the au- 
thor means by a lucid zone. — Principle and conse- 
quence of the independence of the absolute. — The 
opinion of Laplace. — Materialization of Energy. — Ori- 
gin of the worlds. — Formation of the Sun and of the 
Planets. — Ideas of Laplace upon the plurality of in- 
habited Worlds.— End of the Worlds.— The Night of 
Brahma. — What becomes of human conscience among 
the ruins of the Universe? — Man, a cell of the Great 
Being. — Rapidity of the translation of the so-called 
fixed stars. 



Before taking up the study of man and the 
analysis of his essence, the author has deemed it 
necessary to give an idea of the great All in 
which each one of the molecules and atoms of 
which we have just spoken are bound together. 
From a grain of sand to the immense suns there 
exist ties, the invisible threads of which are be- 
yond the vision of human eye, but which the 
mind may grasp and conceive. 

In this study of things existing, the ancients 



30 PSYCHISM. 



were our masters; we cannot render them an 
homage too great; do not the discoveries of 
modern science enable us to comprehend many 
passages in ancient writings which the preceding 
generation could not clearly understand? Spec- 
tral analysis, for instance, showing as it does 
the analogy which exists in the composition of 
the stars — those suns which lighten and vivify 
myriads of earths — and that of our own sun ; this 
very analysis placing under our hand, so to 
speak, the identity of composition between the 
sun and our earth, of which it also indicates its 
origin, seems to give us an explanation of 
the lines known as the golden verse of the 
Pythagorians, written in rythmic prosodia by 
Lysis, a disciple of Pythagoras: 

. . . yvGoffr) 6 rf Ss/us sari, cpvffiv nepi 7tavTo$ 

[ ofAoirfv 
Sets <re fxrjte as\7tT y eh.ni'gsiv, fjitjre ri Xrfieiv. 

We must therefore seek to enlighten ourselves 
through the medium of modern science on the 
hieroglyphic symbols which have been handed 
down to us from ancient times. Why did the 
ancient sacred historians (Heathens, Judeo- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 31 

Christians, &c.) harmonize so well and unan- 
imously agree that "God made man after His 
own image," and, again, that "man is a micro- 
cosm," which, from the hermetic standpoint, sig- 
nifies exactly the same thing? It is because 
most of the scribes, deeply learned in a science 
which the ordinary class of men deserved not to 
know, understood the analogy in the composi- 
tion of man to that of the Universe; they had 
experimentally learned that the elements of the 
"Sacred Tetrad" might be found in man. They 
had not awaited Bacon to invent the experi- 
mental method, nor did they cast to the winds 
the secrets of which they had robbed nature: 
sacred, for them, meant that which the vulgar 
herd was not to know. As they did not wish 
their discoveries to be entirely lost, they men- 
tioned them in obscure expressions, they veiled 
them under symbolical figures which might seirve 
as guides to the memory of their disciples, or as 
an awakening influence to the intelligence of 
future able and cultured observers, who would 
revive their teachings. 

In order to understand the essence of Life, it 



32 PSYCH ISM. 



is necessary to make a comparative examination 
of the Universe and of Man — the Macrocosm 
and the Microcosm — and even then we cannot 
have a clear conception of it unless we lift the 
soul out of the ordinary groove of thought, 
from whence chiefly are born prejudices, er- 
roneous ideas and delusions upon all that sur- 
rounds us ; we must remove, at least for a mo- 
ment, our mind from the narrow boundaries in 
which it daily grovels, and from the limited con- 
fines to which it has but too great a tendency to 
mould itself. A conception of the nature of man 
is one of those things which require such an ab- 
straction of thought. 



Spinoza said that we were always to look at 
things under a character of eternity. We can 
go further and assert that one must learn to 
consider all things in their relation to space and 
time, with eternity and immensity. How many 
great events, how many grand situations would 
seem paltry if they were to be submitted to the 
calculations of such a rule of proportion! But 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 33 

it is an operation not within reach of everybody ; 
non licet omnibus. 

Another condition which it is quite important 
should not be disregarded, is the need of curb- 
ing that pride which too frequently accompanies 
a meager scientific education, a specialized and 
perhaps incomplete instruction, as is so often the 
case at the present day. A number of people 
well informed on one special point of knowl- 
edge, fancy that they are permitted to arbitrarily 
decide upon everything, and are ready to deny 
ought that may be new or that shocks the ac- 
cepted order of their ideas, arguing often for 
this reason only (which they seldom acknowl- 
edge to themselves) that if such and such ex- 
isted it were impossible for them not to know 
of it. We have often met with this sort of self- 
sufficiency among men whose education and 
studiousness should have preserved from this 
regrettable moral infirmity had they not been 
specialists limiting themselves to their specialty. 
It is a sign of relative inferiority to believe in 
one's own superiority. 



34 PSYCHISM. 



Again, the number of intelligences affected 
with lacunae is greater than is commonly known. 
For instance, some minds are utterly unable to 
pursue the study of music, or mathematics, as 
many are forbidden entertaining certain trains 
of thought. Many who have become dis- 
tinguished in various lines of human occupation, 
let it be medicine or the grocery business, litera- 
ture or the weaver's art, would have made a sad 
failure of their office had they chosen, as do 
many in this world, a career beyond the pale of 
what we shall call their Lucid Zone, comparing 
it to the action of some reflectors which, at 
night, carry the light within a zone of luminous 
pencils, outside of which all is shadow and un- 
certainty. Every human being possesses a 
lucid zone, whose extent, power and brightness 
varies with each individual. There are things 
which remain beyond the grasp and understand- 
ing of certain intelligences, being outside the 
boundary of their lucid zone. We need insist 
no further; an ill disposed critic might recog- 
nize his case in these observations and accuse 
us, by way of reprisal, of having chosen a sub- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 35 

ject outside of our own zone. May the gods 
spare us such a calamity ! 

# * * 

Releasing thought from the atomic depths of 
matter in which we have plunged it, we will 
transport it to space, and view the macrocosm 
in immensity; we shall tnen see that the com- 
parison of the molecule to the nebula is not in- 
consistent. Science is not acquainted with the 
laws of molecular movements, and while it knows 
more about those which govern the planets of 
our own system, it is still unenlightened on the 
laws of stellar movements. But, considering 
the law of the independence of the absolute, 
nothing prevents us from presupposing the 
movements of the molecule, as we conceive it, 
as being identically similar to those of the stars 
and planets. The proportion of time taken by 
the evolution of the molecule being, of course, 
in proportionate ratio to the amount of space 
within which it evolves. And, if upon these 
small masses there exist intelligent beings, the 
inhabitants of a size relative to the interatomic 



36 PSYCHISM. 



planets or earths they occupy, they would not 
perceive their motion any more than we feel that 
of our earth, although it carries us along into 
space at a rate of about thirty kilometers per sec- 
ond; life on these diminutive planets would be 
shorter than the speed of thought, and would 
possibly be spent in occupations relatively as nu- 
merous and of as long duration, if not as futile 
as ours too often are. Time for them would have 
the same valuation and their pride in the achieve- 
ment and greatness of their work would be no 
whit less than that of man's. . . . and as le- 
gitimate. 

This principle of the independence of the ab- 
solute has been clearly grasped by Laplace, as is 
shown in the following quotation from his Ex- 
position of the System of the World : "One of the 
remarkable properties of attraction, he writes, is, 
that if the dimensions of all the bodies in the 
Universe, their mutual distances and the rapidity 
of their motion were to increase or diminish pro- 
portionally, they would move in curves wholly 
similar to those in which they are now moving, 
and the Universe would still present to its observ- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 37 

ers an unchanged appearance. This appearance 
is therefore independent of the absolute move- 
ment which it may have in space. Hence, the 
simplicity of the laws of nature allows us to ob- 
serve and to know nothing but relations." 

Next, let us question what are those other mole- 
cules of the infinite, the stars and suns, blue, 
white, black (these probably exist; those that are 
extinct having cooled like the planets which are 
portions of suns), suns that are red or yellow, 
constellations, nebulae, the Milky Way holding 
countless stars, among them our sun, which, be- 
ing separated from each other by some billions 
of leagues, yet appear to us as if grouped together 
and contiguous. Let us ask how were they 
formed ? 

Look at the comets, they are nothing but "cos- 
mic matter" seeking a channel in some part of 
the infinite space to create a new solar system. 
In this condition Energy assuming the form of 
atoms in order to conglomerate itself into mole- 
cules, has not yet issued from its potential state ; 
but, if one point materializes the molecules will 



33 PSYCHISM. 



immediately fasten to this point, and ^Energy, un- 
der its new form {Matter) passes into the dyna- 
mic state ; the rain of molecules will multiply, the 
points of materialized energy will precipitate 
themselves upon each other, and generate an in- 
tensity of heat so great that they will be volatil- 
ized. And thus are formed the suns which gyrate 
through the heavens. From these melting suns 
volatilized annular masses escape and cool in 
space, where they are lost. Lost ? No, they are 
held back by the attraction or that which we call 
attraction (i) of their sun, whose planet they 
become. 

It is thus "that gravity, by a slow and vast op- 
eration of crystallization, whose progress through 
the depths of space is contemplated with emotion 
by the astronomer, condenses little by little that 
matter which was primarily prodigiously dilated, 
and forms it into solar, stellar and planetary 
systems." (E. Joufrret.) 

And now let us add that life exists always 
and at all periods upon the suns and planets ; it 

(1) "Quam ego attractionem appello." (Newton.) 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 39 

merely adapts itself to its surroundings. Think 
you that life may not manifest itself upon such 
and such a planet because it happens to be colder 
or warmer than ours, more or less remote from 
the sun? Listen to our answer: "As the sun, 
through the beneficent effect of its heat and light, 
causes the earth to be covered with animals and 
plants, we judge by analogy that similar effects 
are produced on other planets; for it were not 
natural to think that matter, whose energy we see 
developing in so many ways, should be sterile 
upon other spheres. Jupiter, like the terrestrial 
globe, has its days, its nigfhts and its years, and 
observers find alterations which presage very ac- 
tive changes (2). It would, however, be giving too 
great an extension to analogy, to conclude there- 
from a similarity between the inhabitants of the 
planets and those of the earth. Man, who is fit- 
ted to the temperature in which he lives, to the 
air which he breathes, would be unable, from all 
indications, to live upon any of the other planets. 
But, must there not be an infinity of organization 

(2) Which may be due to a yet incomplete solidi- 
fication. ( Author. ) 



40 PSYCHISM. 



in relation to the different constitutions of the 
globes of this Universe! If the mere differences 
in the elements and in the climates cause so great 
a variety in the terrestrial productions, how much 
more must those of the other planets and of their 
satellites differ? The most vivid imagination is 
unable to form an idea of them, but their exist- 
ence is most probable" (3). 



Now that science has brought us to witness the 
mode of formation of systems, the genesis of 
worlds, we may ask what becomes of all this agi- 
tation, all this movement? We shall again defer 
in favor of better authorities on this subject. 
"From a reckoning by Helmholtz, the Solar Sys- 
tem," says M. E. Jouffret, "possesses now but 
the 454th part of the transformable energy it had 
when in the nebular state. Although this residue 
still constitutes a store, whose enormity balks im- 
agination, some day it also shall be spent, and 
later on, a transformation of the whole Universe 

(3) Laplace in Essai sur les Probdbilites. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 41 

will occur, and a general equilibrium as to both 
temperature and pressure will be established. 

"Energy will no longer be susceptible of trans- 
formation. It will not be nothingness, meaning- 
less word, nor properly speaking, immobility, since 
the same total amount of energy will still exist 
under the form of atomic movement, but the ab- 
sence of all sensible motion, of all difference and 
all tendency, that is to say, absolute death. 

"The planets will no longer circulate around 
extinct suns. Successive agglomerations will 
have been produced, developing each time an in- 
tense heat (4), which might open once more a 
vital period more or less extended, having creat- 
ed solar systems more and more gigantic, but less 
and less numerous ; having ended at last in bring- 
ing all things together in one mass which, hav- 

(4) If the Moon were to fall upon the Earth 
(which it is nearing insensibly), the heat produced 
by this stupendous shock would be sufficient to induce 
a fusion of both planets and to produce a star that 
would shine with unusual brilliancy for the inhabit- 
ants of other planets of our system, if indeed there 
were any left to contemplate this "Sign in the 
Heavens." (Author's note.) 



42 PSYCHISM. 



ing for a long time revolved upon its own axis, 
will end by remaining motionless in relation to 
the environing space; a mass henceforth homo- 
geneous, insensible, unchangeable, whose awful 
quietude nothing shall ever more disturb." 

Such, if we admit the permanency of the laws 
which now rule both nature and reason, is the 
state toward which the Universe is converging. 

"Laplace, deceived by his calculations, did not 
suspect this final event." 



"And the angel . . . . . sware that there 
should be time no longer." (Apocal., Chap. X., v. 5, 
6.) 

Such is the destiny of the World: Like every 
living thing it has passed through an embryonic 
state; it has had its infancy, its adolescence and 
its maturity; the decrepitude of age is now at 
hand. 

At least, such are the conclusions reached by 
modern science with its knowledge of the "ele- 
ments situated at the two lower angles of the 
triangle." We refer to Matter and Energy. 

It is an interesting fact to note that the 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 43 

Brahmins and the Pundits of the East have a 
similar cosmogony. In their symbolical lan- 
guage, they term this final upheaval of the 
spheres, this arrest of the Universe at the dead 
line: "The night of Brahma," the night of in- 
numerable ages during which, after having ab- 
sorbed everything, both Gods and things, the 
"Ancient of Days" contemplates Himself in His 
Eternal Parabrahm. 

And what becomes of man in all this clash- 
ing of the heavenly bodies which are ignited and 
volatilized by falling upon one anoher? What 
befalls the conscience of man and what fate 
awaits it? Science has not yet openly interested 
itself in this question, but it is bound to soon 
take up the study, for the manifestations of this 
conscience in after-life are beginning again to 
claim our attention, and to challenge observation. 



Man is there, a poor, limited being in the 
midst of that immensity; weak if he fears, but 



44 PSYCH1SM. 



as strong as the world itself if he understands 
it and yields his mind to the all controlling fact, 
that he is naught but one cell of the Great All ! 
He, though a limited being, "a mere reed, but 
a thinking reed," can conceive that which is 
unlimited; for thousands of years to him has 
been given the power to observe stars which 
seem not to have moved. The figures of the 
celestial sphere remain the same, and yet the in- 
struments which man's genius has invented per- 
mit him to compute that those stars recede or 
advance at the rate of twenty, thirty or thirty- 
five kilometers per second! Sirius, for instance, 
which is situated at thirty-nine trillions of 
leagues from the Earth, recedes from it seven 
hundred thousand leagues a day, which is a score 
of times swifter than that of a bullet discharged 
from a firearm. This has been proved by spec- 
troscopics! analysis. 

Thus man acquires knowledge and ceases to 
wonder. In a flash of thought, he is trans- 
ported to other worlds, his mind revealing that 
which dimness of vision denies him. Re- 
entering his own sphere, if not inflated with 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 45 

vain pride because of his glorious ascension, he, 
too, becomes godlike ! 

As a material emanation of the planet on 
which he pursues his vertiginous journey 
through space, he may learn of the dangers 
which surround him; they, however, will not 
disturb him if armed with the JEgis of Knowl- 
edge. . . . But let us not anticipate. Let 
us back to the surface of the terrestrial sphere, 
and there seek the microcosm and endeavor to 
acquire that which modern science alone can 
teach us in regard to it. 



PART II. 

A STUDY OF THE MICROCOSM, 



CHAPTER I. 

Summaey: A glance at the knowledge which 
Physiology has given us of ourselves up to the pres- 
ent time from the psychical point of view. — The phys- 
ico-chemical doctrines. — The animistic and vitalistic 
doctrines. — Modern materialistic doctrines. — The 
opinion of Claude Bernard upon Living Matter. — 
Opinions of divers medical men, and other scientists. 
— Are life and intelligence mere properties of mat- 
ter? — Organic, animal and intellectual life. — The 
progress of the nervous influx. — The rapidity of the 
nervous current through the nerves. — Pathology 
shows that will has no exclusive seat within one or 
the other of the cerebral hemispheres. — Modern opin- 
ions on the properties of nervous cells. — Are ideas 
nought but infinitesimal electrical discharges, pro- 
duced by the nervous cells? — Part played by the Pos- 
itivistic method. 

It would be foreign to the intention and ca- 
pacity of this work to enter into a complete his- 
tory of the theories which have, at various times, 
been advanced in reference to those phenomena 
which preside over the maintenance of the 



50 PSYCHISM. 



self. Hence if this "irritating" agent is free and 
has an independent existence, it precludes the 
idea that life, as we picture it with its manifesta- 
tions, is naught in substance but the property of 
organized living matter. 

But does this not amount to a play of words? 
Could not Claude Bernard's experiments be 
brought in evidence against him? And would 
we not be justified in objecting: If living or- 
ganized matter is inert and needs an external ex- 
citant to call forth a manifestation of its proper- 
ties, we cannot understand how the hepatic cells 
continue to secrete sugar so long after the liver 
has been separated from the body. We trust to 
advanced Science, which by no means precludes 
prior discoveries, to elucidate this question and 
eventually bring us a satisfactory solution of it. 

So far, we have lightly gone over the princi- 
pal theories of life; we will shortly interest our- 
selves in the so-called scientific opinions which 
commonly prevail upon the nature of intelli- 
gence. 

We never fail, when occasion presents, to 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 51 

question learned men (physicians, physiologists, 
biologists, etc.) and endeavor to elicit their views 
on the subject now under discussion, but so far, 
reluctantly confess, that, with few exceptions, 
the opinions have been rather unclear and un- 
formed. 

By some, especially in Germany, is held the 
belief that life and even intelligence are simply 
the peculiar properties of matter, which in per- 
fecting its organization under the influence of 
the laws of evolution (Haeckel) tends to pro- 
duce phenomena (which we call vital) of greater 
and greater complexity. These laws organize, 
or polarize, if we prefer, after the manner in 
which we are now observing them upon this par- 
ticular point of space, in an altogether arbitrary 
manner considering that the origin of their ac- 
tual state is but the consequence of previous 
conditions. 

In France several distinguished physicians, 
notably a scholar celebrated in nervous pathology, 
have given similar answers, but the greater num- 
ber of learned men to whom we propounded our 
queries replied unsatisfactorily, thus proving 



52 PSYCHISM. 



that the ties which bound them to their special- 
ties admitted of no leisure for reflection to select 
an opinion on the subject. In Spain and Cuba, 
where many cultivated and well read minds are 
met with, and also in North America, our ex- 
perience, we regret, was as aforementioned. 

Thus the tendency of Science to-day is to con- 
sider life and intelligence as manifestations, or 
rather properties, of living organized matter; 
properties which are essentially transitory, just 
as is matter itself which secretes them. "The 
brain secretes thought as the kidneys secrete 
urine," said a celebrated German thinker. 

However, let us add that if such is the opin- 
ion most prevalent, quite an imposing minority 
(among those who seem to have an opinion) pro- 
fesses either in petto or openly, certain spiri- 
tualistic opinions, or else, being indifferent to 
physico-metaphysical discussions, murmurs the 
words of Montaigne, "What do I know?' 



>» 



An appreciable change is, however, occurring, 
and we do not hesitate saying that the spiritual- 
istic movement is becoming more and more pro- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 53 

nounced, especially among the enlightened classes 
of our young men. Considering the publication 
of our work on psychical phenomena, we might 
perhaps say a propos of this movement: Cujus 
pars parva fid. 



Without presuming to be able to show in a 

few lines the acquisitions of psychological anal- 
ysis and observation, we will endeavor to sum- 
marily expose the data of positive science upon 
the principal psycho-nervous functions of life to 
the extent made necessary by the limitations of 
this work. 

The functions of the nervous system in the 
maintenance of organic life are as yet very ob- 
scure. If the anatomy and the histology of the 
ganglionic apparatus are fairly well studied, the 
same is not quite true of its physiology. It is 
evident that the part played by the nervous sys- 
tem in organic life is most important, but what 
are the parts played by the different portions of 
this system? Are the sympathetic ganglia 
centres, or merely auxiliary, supplementary or- 



54 PSYCHISM. 



gans. One fact accepted is, that the great sym- 
pathetic, the principal uncontested agent of vege- 
tative life, transmits very rapidly to the periphery 
the central impressions which act upon the organ 
of intelligence. To illustrate, we cite but one 
instance: witness the rapidity with which our 
faces flush or pale according to the nature of the 
impressions received. In this case the sympa- 
thetic nerves enter into play after they receive a 
stimulus from the intellectual centre, by dilating 
or contracting the arterioles of the face. 

The experiments of hypnotic suggestion in 
which one sees, for instance, the suggested idea 
of a blister producing a serous bulla upon a 
designated point of the subject's skin, show un- 
der another light the close intimacy uniting the 
central nervous system of ideation with the nerves 
of organic life, and, although actual science is 
able to demonstrate but a few effects in the oper- 
ations of organic life, in the main, as in many 
other cases, she denies us absolutely a wherefore 
or primitive cause. 

From the animal standpoint, among the vital 
or exciting agents of living matter, we are able, 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 55 

to a certain point, to analyze the one which de- 
termines conscious voluntary movement. For 
instance, take the motion of flexing a finger. We 
know, or rather we presume, that the first period 
of this action takes place in the cortical layer of 
gray cells of the anterior part of the cerebral 
lobes (volition). The nervous cells of the cor- 
tical layer send the excitation through the white 
fibres of the corona radiata (the fibres crossing 
one another, for the major part, within the cor- 
pus callosum) to the basal ganglia of the op- 
posite hemisphere, and these, through centrifugal 
fibres, or by a retrograde motion, send back the 
influx to the gray cells upon the surface of the 
convolutions in the point of localization which 
corresponds to the movements of the upper limb 
(middle third of the anterior and posterior central 
convolutions). From this point, the nervous fluid 
which is to excite the muscular fibres of the fore- 
arm and cause them to contract, doubtless passes 
through the internal capsule, the crus cerebri, the 
medulla oblongata, the spinal cord, and through 
the nerves of the brachial plexus, as far as the 
flexor muscles of the forearm, the contraction of 



56 PSYCHISM. 



one of whose fasciculi brings about the flexion of 
the finger. 

Experiments have permitted Helmholtz to as- 
certain the rate of circulation of the fluid of 
which we have just spoken. The nervous cur- 
rent (or nervous vibratory wave) passes through 
the nerves at a rate of 28 to 30 meters per sec- 
ond. In other words, an excitation produced at 
the beginning of a motor nerve, if it had a length 
of 30 meters, would take one second to cause a 
contraction of the muscles situated at the ex- 
tremity of this nerve. The same thing would 
occur in a sensory nerve, but the current would 
take an inverse course — that is to say, a centri- 
petal one. It is an exceedingly slow rate of 
speed, especially when compared to that of an 
electric current. 

That the several movements due to nervous 
energy must needs follow the path whose course 
we have indicated in this particular case, starting 
from a centre of volition, is proven by the fact 
that a man, for instance, suffering from paralysis 
of either side of the body (hemiplegia), although 
incapable of causing any action in the cerebral 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 57 

nervous centre which has been destroyed, still 
retains the faculty of being able to will a move- 
ment in the disabled limb which he vainly en- 
deavors to move. This proves that Will has an 
independent seat, and that it is not localized in 
one cerebral centre more than in another. The 
same must be said of Conscience. 

According to the present materialistic doc- 
trine, the central organs of the brain would not 
be the instruments of the intelligence acting by 
means of them, but would be able of their own 
accord, through the mere effect of their nutri- 
tion, without external excitation, to develop 
forces acting upon their fibres. It is what has 
been called automatism of the nervous centres. 
And as to "the so-called will-phenomena, they 
are without doubt but a complicated form of re- 
flex acts." Memory would consist in nothing 
but an effect of the "power which the nervous 
globules possess in maintaining certain excita- 
tions in order to allow them to manifest only at 
a given moment." 

In a treatise on physiology, a work most pop- 



58 PSYCHISM. 



ular with French medical students, may be 
found the expose of the theory from which have 
been borrowed the quotations just perused (i) 
which holds that intelligence and its manifesta- 
tions must be considered entirely as properties of 
matter organized under the form of nervous cells. 

These nervous cells, according to Rosenthal, 
are, from a psychical standpoint, possessed of 
four properties: I, They may spontaneously be 
the seat of an auto-excitation; that is to say, 
without the intervention of external causes. 2. 
They are able to transmit a stimulus to another 
nerve cell, by means of fibres which unite them, 
which are nerve fibres. 3. They may receive an 
excitation, or stimulus, and transform it into 
a sensation. 4. They are able to suppress an 
existing stimulus. 

To these four properties a young and brilliant 
philosopher of Cuba, Sr. Varona, adds another 
which may be considered as an extension of 
Rosenthal's first proposition, namely: "Spon- 
taneously or through the agency of purely inter- 

(1) Cours de physiologie d'apres V enseignement 
du Prof. Euss, par le Dr. Mathias Duval. Paris. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 59 

nal causes the nervous globules are able to re- 
new sensations anteriorly received" (i). 

Ideas, according to this theory, would be mere 
combinations of these properties, and would con- 
sist only in sensory and motor elements. And 
all sensations, with ideas and thoughts, would 
merely be movements occurring within the ner- 
vous substance, partaking of the nature of elec- 
tricity, and arising frbm weak discharges of the 
motor and sensory parts of the anatomical sub- 
stratum. (Hughlings Jackson.) The experi- 
ments of Dubois Reymond upon the intervention 
of electricity in nervous phenomena would seem 
to support this ingenious theory. 

We cannot help recognizing that psychical 
phenomena which are secondary to the acts of 
comprehension, conception and volition, occur 
somewhat as if they were determined by a causa- 
tion of the electrical category ; however, we must 
observe that, while the nervous current which 
follows the nerves causes ( through a hypothet- 

(1) Enrique Jose Varona. Conferencias Fitosofi- 
cas. Psicologia. Habana, 1888. 



60 PSYCHISM. 



ical molecular modification) a change in the di- 
rection of the natural current of an extra-sensi- 
tive galvanometer, it does not act, at least from 
the standpoint of speed, in the same manner as 
does the ordinary electrical current. This ques- 
tion, however, is but of secondary consideration, 
for, even if we admit as established, the existence 
of a centripetal or centrifugal current which fol- 
lows the nerve-fibres, we can hardly believe that 
the theories which we are endeavoring to render 
clear to the reader are fully able to satisfy even 
their defenders as to what relates to the First 
interior cause of psychical phenomena: 

They show us in this supposed electrical ap- 
paratus the bell and its mechanism, the spring 
and the electro-magnet; in our dissections we 
may pass through the cerebro-spinal battery and 
follow the conducting threads, similar to metallic 
axis-cylinders, and, like them, isolated as if by a 
silk or gum neurilemma; they may cause us 
to hear the sound given forth by the apparatus, 
and even make us feel the fluid itself, but we are 
not shown the invisible finger which turns the 
key and closes the current. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 61 

Notwithstanding the care taken in examining 
the nervous system, more especially the brain, 
nothing can we find upholding or supporting the 
various theories on matter and mind. This fact 
has been noticed by Sr. Varona in the remarkable 
work which we quoted above. "While behold- 
ing," he says, "this globular mass, with a surface 
so irregular and so deeply furrowed with fissures, 
and weighing two or three pounds, I have al- 
ways experienced the most vivid sensation of 
astonishment. It appeared to me as though the 
great enigma of Psychology were arising before 
me, and the vanity of all the answers that have 
been made to it heretofore has appeared to me 
in the brightest light. 

Physiology does not enable us to discover 
within that great centre tissues, elements, cur- 
rents or functions other than those which have 
already been recognized. All that the most care- 
ful examination may show is a structural differ- 
ence of small importance per se. And yet, the 
marvelous world of intelligence and imagination, 
the grandeur and misery of sentiment, the hero- 
ism and frailty of will, all that constitutes Man, 
all that raises or lowers humanity, lies there." 



62 PSYCHISM. 



These philosophical considerations, which 
briefly picture the sentiments of one of the 
distinguished pyschologists of the modern posi- 
tivistic school, will serve to end this chapter, for 
we do not wish to speak at greater length of 
this doctrine and its defenders, having intention- 
ally mentioned but one of the youngest of its ad- 
vocates. More could certainly be said of its 
works, but we must limitate our discussion. We 
will merely add that it is a cause for pride to 
our race to behold the loftiness of thought 
which men have attained, whose steps within the 
inextricable labyrinth of cerebral physiology 
were not guided by Ariadne's thread of psycho- 
logical experimental research which has only re- 
cently been unfolded. But a new era is begin- 
ning ; minds, prepared by the method of the posi- 
tivistic school, will be abler than heretofore to 
advance on the psychological ground, which in- 
vites our investigation. A few belated positivists 
will still resist for awhile, but now that the path 
has been cleared by them, the work will steadily 
progress. Every one in the concert of life fills 
his part after his own method, and he who ex- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 63 

erts a conscientious endeavor toward the uphold- 
ing of even an erroneous doctrine is at times the 
unconscious agent of Providence ; instead of cast- 
ing a veil over truth, as he apparently does, his 
work often serves to prepare the way to its tri- 
umphant victory. 




CHAPTER II. 

Summary: The part to be played in future by ex- 
perimental Physiology in the study of the essence of 
Life, of the Vital Ether. — Psychological physiology 
will have to follow its study as far as, and even after, 
death. — Matter and Energy admitted as two consti- 
tuting elements of the Universe. — If there exists in 
the Universe nothing but matter and energy, con- 
science must be extinguished simultaneously with 
death, the last function of the body. — But there is a 
third element. — Ancient origin of materialisms, as 
well as of spiritualisms. — The opinion of Solomon, of 
Moses, of the Eastern Buddhistic Sects. — Quotations 
from the "Ruines" of de Volney. — Pantheism. — Nir- 
vana. — Neant (nothingness). — The causes which oper- 
ate to breed disagreement among philosophers. — They 
will all agree some day, at least as far as primordial 
ideas are concerned, thanks to experimental Science. 

We have seen in the preceding chapter that 
the classical physiological studies have as yet 
taught nothing in regard to the true nature of 
Life. The times. are ripe when the psychologist, 
backed by a real store of positive knowledge, 
must make researches in a more hazardous direc- 
tion. Leaving the field of life, which is bounded 
by death, he must analyze this last phenomenon, 
death, this ultimate function of the body, and 



66 PSYCHISM. 



study experimentally the properties of the vital 
ether of the nervous Akasa, as did his predece- 
sors, the ancient hierophants, who are his masters 
in this matter. But, ere we travel further toward 
this path which we are seeking to discover, the 
reader must permit that we place before him a 
few indispensable preliminary thoughts and 
notes. 

If we admit the natural conclusions of the 
theory teaching that the manifestations of life 
in general and those of intelligence in particular 
are nothing but the putting in action of certain 
properties of organized matter, we must also ad- 
mit that at the instant of death everything goes 
into nihility — that Nirvana of Materialism. 

If we grant to modern Science that another 
true being equally as important as matter, studied 
under the name of Energy, (7) constitutes an 
element of the Universe, we do not modify the 
results of our analysis. For if we hold to the 
exclusive existence of Matter, whose properties 
may alter according to its different conditions, its 



(7) E. Jouffret. Op. dt. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 67 

molecular groupings, we must admit that, at the 
moment of death, the properties of organized 
substance disappear when the change of state, 
characterized by the cessation of life, takes place. 
The living organized matter having evolved once 
as matter, its evolutionary acme of complexity, 
is, like the Sisyphean rock, rudely carried back 
to lower grades upon which it descends more and 
more swift toward the inorganic state from 
whence it originated. During its consecutive 
stages its properties are modified with their 
changes of state upon the eternal cycle figured 
in the symbolical Ouroboros, the serpent of the 
ancients. 

But will we make any advance toward the so- 
lution of our problem by admitting the auton- 
omous existence of Energy "as a true being, an 
element constituting the Universe?" We think 
not; energy and matter are co-existant. Very 
well ! Like unto matter which from the Cosmical 
or radiant (Crookes) state passes to the gaseous, 
liquid or solid state, or to any of the infinite 
combinations of these, energy becomes light, mo- 
tion, heat, magnetism or electricity, X-rays of 



68 PSYCHISM. 



Roentgen, according to the mode in which it acts 
upon matter, or becomes united to it. Asso- 
ciated with organized substance, energy would 
be transformed into life, intelligence, etc. And 
in the same way that matter in motion loses its 
dynamic energy, through its tendency to what is 
known in mechanics as the degradation of energy, 
in the same manner living organized matter loses 
also its dynamic, that is to say, its vital energy, 
under the influence of a law which is analogous 
to that of "degradation." This vital energy 
would tend, as well as the element of which we 
have already spoken, to return to the great com- 
mon store-house of potential energy from 
whence, to the end of all time, the forces of the 
Universe gravitate. It would still be the imme- 
diate annulling of conscience, or, as some express 
it without sufficient reasons, the return to the 
Unconscious (8). 

We beg the reader to ponder well on what has 
been said, for we shall soon again resume the 

(8) Perhaps from the following definition of God, 
taken from the Sanscrit text: "That which He is, He 
alone knows, and perhaps even He knows it not." 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 69 

study of this subject. We will see that if matter 
and energy were at first one, the psychical phe- 
nomena, to which we shall call attention, force 
us to recognize a third principle which joins 
itself to that Duality, matter, forming Trin- 
ity, which is the basis of all esoteric, that is to 
say, of all the secret, religious systems of an- 
tiquity. From time immemorial it is the Trinity 
which those who have acted as the mediators be- 
tween Heaven and Earth have consciously or 
unconsciously clothed with various symbols. 
And thus is Nature offered for man's adoration ! 

•K 3{c $. 

We already foresee the objections which will 
be entered against us. We will be accused of 
imitating Pythagoras and Pherecydes, his mas- 
ter, whom Heredotus, insidiously, and Cicero, 
openly, charged with having plagiarized and ap- 
propriated the systems of the Indo-Egyptians. 
Upon this matter we beg to refer the reader to 
what has been said in the introduction of this 
book. Moreover, is it an objection of any import 
to argue that "there is nothing new under the 
Sun?" Are the materialistic doctrines recent, 



70 PSYCHISM. 



which at present are so strongly upheld under 
the names of mechanism and positivism, and 
which nearly all lead to nihilism? Not at all. 
Of those various doctrines one is as old as the 
other. Was it not a nihilistic idea that inspired 
Solomon when he wrote: 

"I said in my heart concerning the estate of 
the sons of men, that God might manifest them, 
and that they might see that they themselves are 
beasts. 

"For that which befalleth the sons of men be- 
falleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: 
As the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they 
have all one breath ; so that a man hath no pre- 
eminence above a beast : For all is vanity. 

"All go unto one place ; all are of the dust, and 
all turn to dust again." (Eccles. iii., v. 18, et 
seq.) 

This seems to have been an opinion shared by 
Moses, for in the writings which modern criti- 
cism attributes to him he nowhere mentions the 
soul as an entity surviving the destruction of 
the body. 

On the part of Solomon this doubt (for he 
expresses himself as if in doubt) has nothing 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 71 

surprising in it ; notwithstanding his reputed wis- 
dom, the son of David does not appear to have 
been altogether an adept of ancient knowledge. 
But, one may wonder still more to learn that 
Moses, one of the Hierophants of the temples of 
Thebes and Heliopolis, was silent upon such a 
subject. A man of an intelligence so- diverse 
must have been guided by some superior reason 
to have withheld speech. It is not in our 
province to comment on the actions of this truly 
divine genius who so ably led and held in abey- 
ance a crowd of barbarians, the effete element 
of a populace driven from Egypt at the time of 
famine, in a country which was then overrun 
with strangers (as reported by Diodorus of 
Sicily; Lib. xxiv. and xl.), and made of them a 
people whose longevity still astonishes the world. 

If we go further toward the East we find 
Annihilation, which comprehends the disappear- 
ance of parts in the whole, presented under the 
attractive and desirable doctrine of Nirvana. The 
Buddhistic Church of the South, especially, 
seems to have accepted as a Credo (if we dare be- 



72 PSYCHISM. 



lieve those who have conversed with Pope Sum- 
mangala) the following words which are at- 
tributed to Buddha, and which de Volney in his 
"Ruines" places in the mouths of learned Chinese 
and Siamese priests: 

"Here is the Interior Doctrine which Fot 
(Buddha) himself, on his death-bed, revealed to 
his disciples: 'All theological opinions/ said he, 
'are but chimera;' all tales relative to the nature 
of the gods, to their deeds, and lives, are naught 
but allegories and mythological symbols under 
which are hidden the wisdom and knowledge of 
the operations of nature in the play of elements 
and the course of heavenly bodies. 

"The truth is that everything resolves into 
nothing; all is illusion, appearance, a dream, that 
moral metempsychosis is nothing but a picture 
of physical metempsychosis , or that Successive 
Movement by which the elements of one body 
which do not perish but disintegrate, pass into 
other media and form other combinations. The 
soul is but the vital principle resulting from the 
Properties of Matter (this was written in 1820, 
7th ed.) and the play of elements in the bodies 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 73 

in which they create a spontaneous movement. 
To suppose that this product of the function of 
organs, born with them, fallen asleep with them, 
subsists when they are no longer, is perhaps a 
pleasant tale, but in reality chimerical, and born 
of an overtaxed imagination. God himself is 
the motor principle; the occult force divided 
among beings; the sum of their laws and their 
properties ; the animating principle ; in one word, 
the Soul of the Universe, which, by reason of its 
infinite variety of relations and operations, is 
sometimes simple, sometimes complex, now ac- 
tive, then passive, and always remaining to the 
human mind an insolvable enigma. All that we 
understand is, that matter does not perish ; that 
it essentially possesses properties by which the 
world is governed like a living and organized 
being ; that the knowledge of those laws, in their 
relation to man, is what constitutes Wisdom; 
that virtue and merit reside in their observation; 
that evil, sin, vice are the outcome of ignorance 
and the breaking of these laws ; that happiness 
and unhappiness are but the result of their appli- 
cation, by the same Necessity which causes heavy 



74 PSYCHISM. 



things to fall and light ones to rise, and this, by 
a fatality of causes and effects which form a 
chain connecting the least atom with the highest 
of stars. This is what was revealed by our 
Buddha, Somona Goutama, on his death-bed." 

We know from authentic sources that the doc- 
trine, which in a few sentences has just been so 
brilliantly exposed, constitutes the hermetism of 
a number of oriental sects. Nevertheless we 
do not think we err in saying that de Volney 
unveiled his true sentiments in this magnificent 
exposition. However this ma}^ be, the concep- 
tions and even expressions are exactly the same 
as those which we find to-day in the exposition 
of the philosophical doctrines which certain 
modern writers perhaps think they themselves 
have revealed. 

Without mentioning the Greek Philosophers, 
we could write volumes of such quotations, tell- 
ing- of the antiquity of materialistic doctrines, but 
we must keep within bounds. The annihilation 
toward which the various philosophies or theo- 
sophies sooner or later lead the destiny of human 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 75 



consciousness, is but a consequence of the Panthe- 
ism doctrines toward which one tends when bas- 
ing and guiding reason, not upon the sentiments 
of the moment, but only on the positive and well 
ground scientific data now at our disposition. 

We must not ignore or refuse a theory mere- 
ly because it is contrary to our teachings and 
desires; for example, we wish to be free from 
illness and yet we suffer; to retain a perpetual 
youth and yet we fall into age, and a similar 
fate — decrepitude and the grave — awaits us all. 
Candidus reasoned optimistically, "that every- 
thing is for the best in the best of worlds/' and 
perhaps it is needful and good that grief and 
trouble should be visited alike on one and all (9). 

Pantheism was the hermetic doctrine of the old 
laboratories and institutes (temples). If we can 
rely on Strabo, the well-known Grecian geog- 
rapher, Moses, the great legislator of the Hebrew 
people, must have professed a pure Pantheism; 
otherwise, would he have said (if he did say it) 

(9) We recollect that when a child we waxed 
wroth when told that we would grow old and hoary- 
like our grandfather, providing "God lent us life." ■ 



76 PSYCHISM. 



that God created man after His own image? 
Strabo speaks as follows ( i ) : 

"Moses, who was one of the Egyptian priests, 
taught that it was a grievous error to represent 
the Divinity, as did the Egyptians, under the 
forms of animals, or with the features of man, 
as did the Greeks and Africans. 'That alone/ 
said he, 'which composes the heavens, the earth 
and all beings, that which we call the world, the 
Universality of things, Nature . . . that 
alone is Divinity. . . ' For this reason 
Moses caused the Divinity to be worshipped with- 
out emblems and under its own nature." 

Virgil has said : "The spirit maintains the life 
of beings, and the soul (of the world) scattered 
in its vast limbs agitates the mass (mens agitat 
molem), and represents but one immense body. 



>> 



Therefore from this we deduct the fact that 
the deep and subtle minds of former times whose 
genius was in no way inferior to that of the men 
of the present day, have discussed among them- 

(1) Geog. Lib. XVI. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 77 

selves the same obscure subjects which men for 
the same reason discuss to-day. Philosophers of 
all ages have observed, that no sooner do men 
discuss subjects beyond their limitations than 
each one judges them according to the bent or 
tendency of his mind, or, as we say, with the in- 
clination of his sentiment; on the other hand, 
they agree upon such subjects as fall under their 
senses. But Science has advanced: Marvelous 
discoveries have been made. The certainty of 
modern experimental science, with the aid of sen- 
sitive and accurate instruments now permits us to 
undertake studies and make investigations 
which our forefathers, excepting in a few rare 
initiatory cases, could scarcely approach unless 
with the aid of the a priori or inductive method. 

Philosophers will modify and conciliate their 
opinions as soon as they can put in evidence and 
study, with the aid of experimental instruments, 
the third principle to which we have alluded 
above, that third term of the trinoma, two expres- 
sions of which are otherwise known as Matter and 
Energy. 

It may appear paradoxical at first glance, yet 



78 PSYCHISM. 



spiritualists and materialists, though following 
different paths, but pursuing honestly the search 
for truth, are not as remote in agreeing as one 
might at first believe. We might liken them to 
laborers, who, divided in gangs to bore a tunnel, 
begin at opposite sides of the mountain, and thus 
work on until at last they find that their line of 
pursuit converges, and so, some day, will the va- 
rious antagonistic! philosophical sects, through 
the falling of the veil that separates them, be 
united in a communion of primordial and fruit- 
ful ideas. 

We shall see in the course of this work that 
this opinion is established on another basis than 
an "agreeable tale, but one really based on a 
chimerical and mistaken imagination" (2). 



(2) de Volney. Op. cit. 



PART III. 



THE SEARCH FOR THE THIRD ELEMENT OF THE 
UNIVERSE AND OF MAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

&DMMAM: Comparative study of the Macrocosm 
and Microcosm. — There are two uncontested elements 
in both the one and the other. — The matter of the hu- 
man body is the same as ambient matter. — We are 
the grandchildren of the Sun. — The forces of the hu- 
man body are borrowed from Universal Energy. — As 
far as matter and energy, Man is eternal. — The 
Method of Reasoning for the search of the Third Ele- 
ment. — It is within himself that Man finds the ex- 
planation of the Universe. — Intelligence exists in the 
world. — Intelligence, Energy, Matter. — An insur- 
mountable dilemma. — Arguments gathered from cere- 
bral lesions in favor of materialistic ideas. — Specious 
arguments. — Experimentation only is able to bring 
about an agreement. — Are there any material proofs 
of the existence of the Soul? 

Having given a brief idea of the constitution 
of the Universe and of Man, according to the 
data of actual science, the moment has come to 
make a comparative study of the Cosmos in the 
Universe and in man in order to find out the 
similarities or analogies which may be met with 
in each other. 



80 PSYCHISM. 



We have seen that in the Macrocosm there 
are two things which possess an incontestable 
existence, to wit: Matter and Energy, notwith- 
standing the admission that the first is but an 
appearance, or rather an emanation of the second. 

On the other hand, physiologists of the mod- 
ern school, who do not seem to remember the 
facts just studied, refuse to see aught in the 
manifestations of life, and even intelligence but 
properties of Matter. 

It behooves us to determine at once one point : 
It is well understood that the matter entering 
into the composition of the human body is ex- 
actly the same as that which surrounds it. Every 
chemical element found in the human body ex- 
ists also in the ground that nourishes us, and 
in the dust of which we are made. As before 
mentioned, man's body is a material emanation 
of the planet which carries him through space 

(3)- 

(3) The Earth having the solar origin we alluded 
to above, we can from more than one standpoint, say 
that we are grandchildren of the Sun. The Incas and 
other people who called themselves sons of that heav- 
enly body had perhaps, in a symbolical manner, some 
idea of this origin. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 81 

How could human matter be differently com- 
oosed from the other, and how could it have 
distinct properties ? 

It is, therefore, important to establish as a 
principle the fact that the movements made by 
man, his animal heat, the circulation of his blood 
and nervous fluid, the vibrations of his cerebral 
tissues, etc., are by no means properties of the 
matter out of which he is made, but an emanation 
of the Universal Energy which manifests itself, 
according to his mode of life, by means of matter 
that has been agencied in a particular way to fur- 
ther that end. 

The subject has been mistaken for the object, 
as the Sun was once mistaken for a satellite, a 
mere luminary of the Earth. Hence, it would be 
more accurate to say that Matter is a property 
of Energy, than to advance the contrary. 

Consequently, we recognize in man the micro- 
cosm, exactly what we find in the macrocosm, 
that is to say, matter and energy, both repre- 
sented under different forms. 

We could lengthen this analysis and show that 
man being formed of matter and energy is im- 



82 PSYCHISM. 



mortal, and even eternal, for although matter and 
force may both be transformed:, they remain 
atomically the same for all time. 

However, let us add that if man was all mat- 
ter and force, his personality would exist no 
longer than would the combination of those two 
elements of which he is composed, for neither 
one of them is himself. 



Man, however, the philosopher, rising above 
material objects, the better to dominate them, 
plunges his thought into infinite space, endeavor- 
ing to clear two mysteries: The mystery of the 
World and the mystery that he is to himself. He 
gazes at the celestial vault and the stars, he anx- 
iously scans the Universe, where he, a mere atom, 
is lost. In order to be disturbed by nothing he 
seeks to abstract himself from all that he has ac- 
quired. 

A first fact impresses him : Something exists; 
this he calls Matter. 

A second fact attracts him nearly as soon : 
This matter moves. But he promptly learns that 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 83 

it does not move by any power vested in itself, 
it being inert, cannot move of itself. An exam- 
ination tells him that the movement, its conse- 
quences and transformations, are manifestations 
of Energy. 

Having satisfied himself so far in his examina- 
tion, that everything reduces itself to a demon- 
stration of two principles, upon which all the 
phenomena observed depend, man stops astound- 
ed and disappointed. The existence of Energy 
may explain to him the origin of Matter, but 
what is Energy? Whence does it arise? What 
becomes of it? 

It is in vain that he lingers, gazing upon 
worlds which majestically move in a course which 
an invisible hand seems to have traced for them. 
He despairs of learning ever from this great 
mute and solemn, yet animated Universe. How- 
ever much he questions the stars, the moon and 
the planets and their innumerable inhabitants, 
all those giants of the fathomless space, remain 
deaf to his voice. 

Man then must return to his own nature, listen 
to his own life and analyze himself. 



84 PSYCHISM. 



In his own person he sees a body, borrowed 
from ambient matter. Hence, this borrowed 
body belongs not to him; and when the great 
and ineluctable reckoning day dawns, as it will 
for every living mortal, he knows he must yield 
up, abandon and return to the earth that which 
he received from it. The more he analyzes it 
the more he finds that his matter has the same 
components as Universal Matter. 

Then he finds, still within himself, under 
forms that are as varied as those of matter, this 
other unity or being: Energy, whose effects he 
has seen in the objects that surround him. 

Up to this point he understands that he is made 
of the universal matter and energy ; but, through 
what medium has he understood all these things ? 
Is it through his matter or his energy, or through 
both? But, in either case, it presupposes uni- 
versal matter and energy to be intelligent. 

When he sees the effects of death and the 
inertia of a dead body, he deducts therefrom the 
knowledge that matter in itself is unintelligent. 

And when he analyzes within himself the va- 
rieties of energy and notes that their only office 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 85 

is to perform the functions of his "ageneied" 
matter and to execute the orders of his conscious 
and intelligent will, he is then made aware that 
he has attained that which he has striven for ; he 
understands by means of something which is 
neither his matter nor his energy, and to this, he 
gives the name of Intelligence. 

And, knowing his own nature, he logically ar- 
gues from the Known to the Unknown, and says 
to himself that his matter and his energy having 
sprung from the Universal Source, his intelli- 
gence must needs have the same origin; at last 
he has discovered the third element of the Uni- 
verse. He has seen and understood that, co- 
existent with Matter and Energy, there is Intelli- 
gence. 

He has felt that in order to have a concept 
of the Universe, man is compelled to study and 
understand himself. For we can no more get 
at the essence of the World by what we see of 
it than could a being endowed with an intellect 
like ours, thoroughly understand or even form an 
idea of the nature of man if its size allowed it 
no more than the study of a few giobules circu- 
lating in a capillary blood vessel. 



86 PSYCHISM. 



In fact, we cannot extricate ourselves from this 
dilemma. There is either One Intelligence in the 
Universe, an Intelligence from which may have 
emanated numerous limited intelligences, just as 
matter under the form of limited "objectivities" 
emanates from energy, which itself may emanate 
in its turn from the Superior Principle, or else 
matter and energy are endowed with intelligence. 
For, why should that matter which makes up the 
brain of man be of itself the only substance to 
produce intelligence? Is there not in the Uni- 
versal Substance another matter just as capable 
of producing ideas as is the paltry mass of fatty 
and phosphatic pulp which we call our brain? 
To ask the question is near to solving it. 

One of the great arguments of those who see 
in intellectual manifestations but a simple prod- 
uct of we know not what chance that occasions 
a certain arrangement of the organized matter 
of the brain, consists in this : The man who is 
most brilliantly gifted with mental qualities may, 
after a blow on the head, a poisonous intoxication, 
an apoplectic attack or other lesion of the nervous 
substance, become like a dumb brute and live 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 87 

out a mere vegetating existence. And they say: 
There you can see that intelligence, that divine 
soul of man ; it suffices that a small artery should 
be ruptured or become obliterated in this or that 
point of the eneephalon to make a mute of the 
greatest orator, a driveling idiot of the loftiest in- 
tellect ! Is this not proof sufficient that intelligence 
is a property of matter, since the latter being in a 
measure disabled, nothing of intelligence re- 
mains . . . ? Well, no, it is not proof sub- 
stantiated ! 

If we resort to a process which we will again 
utilize for demonstrative purposes, and accept as 
proved the existence of independent intelligence, 
it will be most evident that if, for one purpose 
or another, that intelligence unites with the deli- 
cately grouped and finely organized matter which 
forms the substance of the brain, a certain amount 
of disturbance occurs in its manifestations, at the 
very moment when this matter undergoes any 
form of disorganization. 

We will grant that outside of experimentation, 
the reasonings which may be entered against 



88 PSYCHISM. 



those which precede, are of no greater value, 
from a rigorously scientific point of view, than 
the one which it seems destined to combat. We 
can answer, for instance: You deny the exist- 
ence of the soul because it acts no longer when 
matter which serves to manifest those functions 
is destroyed or diseased ; it is as though you de- 
nied the existence of steam, if through some ac- 
cident to boiler or cylinder the engine should 
stop. Or again, the best artist could give but a 
meagre demonstration of his talent if compelled 
to play on a violin that lacked the full complement 
of strings or on a piano from which some keys 
were missing, etc. But we must recognize that 
here, no more than elesewhere, does comparison 
signify or take the place of reason. 

Neither materialists or spiritualists have been 
able to convince each other, notwithstanding the 
subtlety of their arguments, the superiority of in- 
telligence, and the sincere desire for truth ob- 
served in both camps. And always for the same 
reason: The world agrees only (sometimes 
after long examination) upon those things which 
fall, and remain, so to say, under the observa- 
tion of its senses. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 89 

And how, will at once be asked, could you 
say a moment ago that philosophers would agree 
some day upon this point; for it is especially on 
this question — the one primordial question among 
all — the existence of the soul, that you have 
meant to speak? 

Our answer goes direct to the point : 

We can have material proofs of the existence 
of the soul. 

This is a fact leaving no doubt in our mind, ana 
Science, when it so decides, will be able to study 
the third constitutive element of the Macrocosm 
(which is found again in the Microcosm) just as 
at present it studies the two other elements — 
Matter and Energy — which it will be able to un- 
derstand far better than before. 

This is what we shall endeavor to prove. 



CHAPTER II. 

Summaby: A retrospective glance. — Commate- 
rial and Abmaterial existence of Intelligence. — Intel- 
ligence is independent of Matter. — So-called Spiritu- 
alistic phenomena support this thesis. — Many great 
things remain for us to learn. — There is no knowl- 
edge without work. — The difference between those 
who think and those who reflect upon nothing. — The 
hour of scientific appreciation. — It has chimed for 
each thing, in its time. — The Procustean bed of ideas 
and facts. — The time has gone by when we had to be- 
gin by proving the existence of psychical facts. — In- 
telligent and Scientific investigations are not lacking; 
wherefore we need no longer seek to convince, espe- 
cially those who refuse to be convinced. 

Before making an examination into the valid- 
ity of a number of pyschical facts observed in 
man, we beg the reader to pause for a moment 
and briefly review that which we have gone over. 
Now that we have reached this point of the analy- 
sis of things, we can in a glance scan the vast 
fields we are leaving and over whose surface we 
have so hurriedly passed without studying deeply 
their interior parts. And here, we will state once 
more, that this work by no means pretends to 
treat exhaustively the subject which occupies us, 



92 PSYCHISM. 



for, after all, the ambition of the writer is merely 
to cause people to think , following in this the ad- 
vice of the author of V Esprit des Lois (4). 

Our desire is to foster and promote thought, 
hoping this little book may happen to fall, as did 
the good seed, upon a fertile ground. For this 
reason we have tried to be brief, knowing that 
ponderous volumes in these days of steam and 
electricity are rarely read. And besides, as was 
said by Paul Louis Courier, "the best things in 
f he world can be written on one page.' 



5J 



But, as we proposed, let us review in a few lines 
the journey we have so swiftly made: In our 
analysis we first summarily studied the Macro- 
cosm. Glancing at our own planet before leav- 
ing it, we began our study of the animated Uni- 
verse, starting from the Unextended Atom, and 
sailing into space in search of the formation and 
end of Worlds. As one may see, our method was 
inspired by the Cartesian principle : We supposed 

(4) "When you treat a subject, it is not necessary 
to exhaust it; it is enough if you cause thought." 
(Montesquieu.) 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 93 

the human mind seeking the secret of the Uni- 
verse, a newly born intellect, a tabula rasa. 

Then, in the second part, we endeavored to 
obtain an idea of the constitution of the Micro- 
cosm, first in exposing- the ideas of the princi- 
pal schools. We have seen that man, as well as 
the world, held certain principles : Firstly, Mat- 
ter and Energy. This led us in the third part of 
our work to study comparatively the Universe 
and Man. 

In that part we saw that besides Matter and En- 
ergy there was Intelligence in this world as well as 
in the human being, unless we were prepared to 
admit that one substance alone (if Intelligence be 
nothing but a product of matter), that is to say, 
the cerebral substance of man, is the only matter 
in the whole Universe that is capable of produc- 
ing intellectual phenomena. 

Now that our reasoning has permitted us to 
recognize the necessary existence of that which 
we have named the third principle or element 
in the Macrocosm and Man, it remains to prove 
this third principle (the first in order of impor- 
tance) as free and independent in man. We may 



94 PSYCHISM. 



be able to give a glimpse of the persistency of 
this element, that is to say, of Conscious Intelli- 
gence, surviving the decomposition of matter to 
which it found itself united under the form of 
the human body. In other words, to show the 
possibility of abmaterial after the commaterial 
existence. This is our aim. 

It may be a bold, but not a temerarious task 
which we have undertaken. We shall, indeed, 
risk nothing now; for, having — nearly fifteen 
years since — written, in order to* begin this dem- 
onstration, a book which has brought ostracism 
upon our head, we have little to fear. 

We hope that no one will think that this is 
written in a spirit of bitterness, for we entertain 
none, and we fully forgive those who have 
thought themselves pure enough to cast the first 
stone at us. The truth, which now dawns, will 
vindicate us, and we are the better pleased because 
it will shine as well for its detractors of yesterday 
as for its friends of to-day. The philosophers 
who shall have defended it, when there was dan- 
ger in so doing, will retire into obscurity without 
remembering the insults they received for its 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 95 

sake, and without asking for honors where they 
formerly got injustice. The honors will, perhaps, 
belong to those who, having first repulsed the 
truth, will finally give it a new Latin or Greek 
name when at last they shall have recognized it. 

The truth is this : Intelligence exists outside of 
matter — matter as Modern Science commonly 
conceives it — and while we once more assert that 
we are not a "Modern Spiritualist/' without 
heeding the theory called by that name, affirm 
that all psychic phenomena claimed by spiritual- 
ism are true, which, however, does not mean that 
they cannot, in a certain measure, be simulated 
by fraud and trickery. 

These phenomena, therefore, help to prove our 
thesis, and that is what we hope to demonstrate. 

It will remain to the shame of a number of our 
scientists that they have so persistently refused 
to look into facts of such importance, especially 
as these have challenged observation for over 
half a century. Their punishment will come at 
the end of their careers in knowing that they 
have missed their opportunity, having died, so- 



96 PSYCHISM. 



called scientists, and yet ignoring the most im- 
portant things ever given them to learn. But pa- 
tience once more: The generation which is ris- 
ing may have to be kept within bounds, so great 
will be the reaction. And we, whom these great 
gentlemen disdain, will defend them and say, as 
it was said on Mount Golgotha: "Forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." How 
could they know? Among the acknowledgeable 
excuses they will be able to make, will be : That 
the paltry things of common life, of their com- 
monplace existence, were too near their eyes, 
so that occupying as they did the whole of their 
visual field, those poor myopics were prevented 
from seeing the things that were beyond. A mere 
question of optics. 

Nowadays, notwithstanding the actual bril- 
liancy of Science, no one would dare say that 
there are no more great discoveries to be made. 
In periods several centuries previous to ours, 
have been found men who, cognizant of the state 
of knowledge of their time, were not afraid to de- 
clare that they did not believe that man could 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 97 

reach a loftier state of civilization or a greater 
.store of science. But now that we have learned 
more, and as the tendency of true knowledge is 
to inform us of our relative ignorance, we shall 
no longer hear Non plus ultra, but Excelsior! 
* Let not the younger men, entering the career 
with all the ardency of youth', forget, however, 
that if great laurels are to be won, they will not 
be gained without struggles and dangers. It 
is of the new Science chiefly that one may say, 
rt is surrounded with a rampart of cliff-like rocks. 

Ardua vallatur duris sapientia scrupis. 

We will insist no further on this subject, 
though later on will be indicated the dangers 
run by those who engage in the studies which we 
have mentioned. 

We have seen and studied hundreds of facts 
which were so convincing that we might won- 
der, at the slow advance in psychology, were we 
not well acquainted with the minds of profes- 
sional scientists. And we are tempted whenever 
reading works in which these questions are 



98 PSYCHISM. 



treated with levity, to cry out : "Who, ye Gods, 
has put his heavy veil over the eyes of mortals, 
that they should forever confound reality with 
illusion and lies? 

We must acknowledge that to the author has 
been given privileges granted to few men, but it is 
because having once been awakened by a most 
simple fact, he became eager to know and found 
time to seek those things which he has seen. 

No good without evil, no knowledge without 
study. Truth must be wooed to be won, as 
Schopenhauer says. One must investigate and 
think. 

To think! Therein lies the difficulty. He 
who does not reflect, finds that everything which 
he commonly sees, as perfectly natural; he is 
born, lives and dies without having asked himself 
why anything exists. On the other hand, the 
least thing happening out of the common, stupe- 
fies him. 

The man who thinks, on the contrary, takes 
interest in apparently insignificant objects. The 
least insect, the tiniest blade of grass, the small- 
est cell of a plant or of the animal body are 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 99 

motives eliciting his reflection and admiration. 
These two varieties of men are found as well 
among scientists as among stone-breakers. 

The things which have occurred up to date in 
the scientific world in regard to the facts of 
which we intend speaking (facts of lucid som- 
nambulism, of telepathy, sight and hearing at a 
distance, or clairvoyance and clairaudience, men- 
tal suggestion, and of spiritualistic phenomenal- 
ity) remind us of the microscope that was pre- 
sented to Pope Leo X at the beginning of the 
XVIth century (1520). The instrument was 
considered a very curious one, capable of amus- 
ing children, but no one had an idea of all the 
uses that would be made of it until three hundred 
years later. The Hour of Scientific Apprecia- 
tion had not yet chimed. 

We respectfully beg leave to announce to the 
gentlemen of the Universities, Academies and 
other Scientific Societies that the hour of appre- 
ciation has come for the phenomena which we are 
studying in this analysis of things, notwithstand- 
ing the zeal with which some of them have turned 



100 PSYCHISM. 



back the hands of the clock. That hour has ar- 
rived at the proper time for every discovery, it is 
a law ; the application of this law is to be made 

anew. 

* * * 

The past holds many instructive facts ; have 
not all great discoveries met an opposition all 
the more serious in that they shocked precon- 
ceived ideas the more? Therefore, be prudent 
with your a priori negations. But, no, history 
after all does not seem to have taught men much. 
For instance, a few years ago the author made 
an observation which seemed to him to be one of 
interest, viz. : A Parisian publisher brought out 
at short intervals three books. The first, was 
upon hypnotic suggestion, the second treated of 
mental suggestion and the last one was a treatise 
©n psychic phenomena. These three books were 
written by scientists and physicians. When the 
first book (Hypnotic Suggestion) appeared in 
the scientific world it met with a large number 
of skeptics. (We believe that they are pretty 
nearly all converted now.) The author of this 
book, which contained some very curious experi- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 101 

ments on hypnotism, did not believe in the mental 
suggestion, which was sustained with proofs in its 
favor by the author of the second volume. On 
the other hand, this last book contained passages 
that expressed sorrow for the loss to science of 
a brother scientist (the author of the third con- 
tribution), who had not seen that all spiritualistic 
phenomena are nothing but fraud or cases of 
mental suggestion in which the Inconscient or 
subliminal consciousness of the medium played a 
great part ! We will say nothing of the third book, 
whose author, in certain places, has, perhaps, not 
shown himself to have been a better critic than his 
colleagues, and that for reasons which the reader 
may guess. How well this observation shows the 
tendency of the human mind! We make unto 
ourselves a frame, which we think is perfect, and 
everything we find that does not fit it, is stretched 
or cut down, a veritable Procustean bed for other 
people's ideas and for facts which belong to 
everybody ! 

Here we end observations, in which we hope 
the reader will find no ill-feeling. We are merely 
observing, that is all. 



102 PSYCHISM. 



In the pages which follow it is not our intention 
to speak of any new experiments, although since 
the publication of our first book we have wit- 
nessed many interesting psychic phenomena. For 
this reason it seems useless to try and demonstrate 
elements and facts of small importance, which to- 
day are to us of so little interest, hence we will 
not trifle any more time in reviewing the subject. 
We might as well be asked to teach the alphabet 
in a village school, and, moreover, the time has 
gone by when it was necessary to begin by prov- 
ing the existence of psychological facts ( 5 ) . As 
there is no lack of intelligent and well-instructed 
investigators nowadays (as one may see in the 
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search), it is not necessary to try and convince 
those who say: "I wouldn't believe it if I saw 
it !" These good people will always find some- 
thing left for them to glean when once they make 
up their minds to follow, pede claudo, the irre- 
sistible movement which has occurred, and whose 
torrent is about to submerge modern philoso- 

(5) We may add that it is our intention to write 
a special account of our experiments. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 103 

phies (6.) Therefore, for the study of the ques- 
tion ab avo we refer the reader to our preceding 
work. 

Let us now study the nature of things in man. 



(6) We may say here that the number of those 
who are interested in these matters is growing so fast 
that the "offer" has become considerably smaller than 
the "demand" — that is, the "mediums" cannot suffice 
to give sittings to those eager to witness psychic phe- 
nomena. Hence, the apparition of a host of fraudu- 
lent mediums of whom the public had better beware. 



CHAPTER III. 

A STUDY OF THE PSYCHICAL CONSTITUTION OF 

MAN. 

Summary: The genesis of man is a microscopical 
action. — It is a simple fact, but a great one. — The 
hypotheses of the pre-existence and of the non-pre- 
existence of the mind over the body. — The hypothesis 
of the parallel formation of the mind and the body is 
an injustice. — One can no more see Energy than one 
can see Intelligence; nothing but their effects are per- 
ceived. — How can we demonstrate the independence 
of the mind? — An unknown thing supposed to be 
known. — A certain part of the faculties of the mind 
is immobilized within certain functions which are in- 
ferior to those of Intelligence. — The mechanism of 
the action of the mind upon the nervous cells. — The 
polyzoism of Durand de Gros. — Facts which show 
that the mind may receive communications from other 
sources than the ordinary ones of the organs. — 
Dreams. 

Two microscopical elements : A cell furnished 
with a vibrating cilium, the male element, and 
another cell of globular form, the female ele- 
ment; two points that are nearly mathematical, 
meet and man is engendered ! 

The globular cell at once undergoes a trans- 
formation; it becomes grafted upon a certain 



106 PSYCHISM. 



point, and divides into a multitude of other cells 
which are to become the organs of a human body. 

This meeting of two cells, produced by two dif- 
ferent beings in order to form a third, is a great 
fact. 

About this fact matter and energy will accumu- 
late. 

But, admitting the existence as well as the uni- 
versality of intelligence, will this latter "breathe" 
upon matter at the same time and pari passu 
with the accumulation of energy upon it? 

Or else, if we refer to the Egyptian, Chaldean 
and Hindoo schools from which their inspiration 
was gathered by Pythagoras, the Neo-Platoni- 
cians, the Kabbalists, the Theosophists, and even 
the "spirits" of modern spiritualists, shall we 
admit that the mind is pre-existent and that it 
has already inhabited several bodies, lived several 
lives ? 

In the first case, the mind detaching itself 
gradually, from the impersonal intelligence (?) 
would become united to matter in a greater or 
lesser proportion, according to the value and the 
capacity of the cerebral recipient. Personality 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 107 

would group itself around the Great Fact of 
which we have just spoken, varying individually 
according to chance, guided arbitrarily (we nearly 
said unjustly) in its formation, by heredity, ata- 
vism, social condition, surroundings, education 
and a thousand other casual circumstances which 
are not of our creating and which concur to at- 
tenuate in so large a measure our personal re- 
sponsibility. 

Those who maintain that there is no such 
thing as chance, cannot admit such a hypothesis, 
and would probably adopt more willingly the 
second one: Pre-Existence of the Emanated 
and Personified Intelligence which lives al- 
ternately in commaterial and in abmaterial states. 
The unequalness of fate towards men might thus 
be explained by former merits and demerits. But 
if the mind be pre-existent, at what moment does 
this intellectual globule, virtually gifted with all 
its future potentialities, unite itself with Matter- 
Energy? Is it after the complete segmentation 
of the ovule, the distinct formation of the dif- 
ferent blastodermic leaflets, the brain being then 
localized in its elements of formation? Does not 



108 PSYCHISM. 



this union occur progressively? In any case, it 
must be long before birth that this "spiritualiza- 
tion" of matter must begin. The spirit, thus en- 
closed within its triple fleshy jail, would "float 
upon the waters" for over three times three 
lunar cycles, ere it reappears to the light of 
day, where it will remain still asleep for about 
three years, at least during waking hours. 

* * * 

However this may be, man is now an accom- 
plished fact ; let us study him. 

What is first seen in this man — as in the ex- 
amination of the Macrocosm — is matter, that is to 
say, his body. This body moves under the stim- 
ulus of varied forces proceeding from energy. 
This force cannot be seen, any more than we can 
see that which animates the world : We see but 
its effects. The same is true of Intelligence. Is 
there such a thing as an effect without a cause ? 

For our own part we have some reason to be- 
lieve that the mind, conscious of its individuality, 
pre-exists to the formation of the body's matter, 
but we think the time has not yet come for the 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 109 

expose of these reasons. (7.) We will have, 
first, to furnish the scientific proof of the value 
of the process through which we have obtained 
our information. This we trust to be able to do 
ere long. 

(7) How is it that we do not recollect our ante- 
rior lives? was objected to Pythagoras. "Some of us 
do," he answered, and he told what he had been in 
preceding existences. To this objection might be 
answered, that in case we had lived several previous 
lives it would not be surprising if we lost all recol- 
lection of them, since it is difficult for us to remem- 
ber, even after a short lapse of time, the events of our 
present life, and that one recalls but a few mo- 
ments after, absolutely nothing of what has been 
seen, done or heard during a somnambulistic state. 
We might add that the somnambulistic state in 
which we may remember not only the details of our 
supraliminal life, but also some facts which seem to 
never have come out of our sub-conscious or sub- 
liminal self, is superior, under some of its aspects, 
to the ordinary supraliminal, and that when we re- 
turn to the commaterial condition, when we "go 
down" into matter, we drink, according to the sym- 
bolical language of the ancients, the waters of Lethe. 
But, this is not an argument. The best reason why 
things should be as Pythagoras taught them is, that 
it is a law, which our ignorance of its existence does 
not prevent from existing. It remains with us to en- 
deavor to find out and demonstrate the reality of 
that law. 



110 PSYCHISM. 



And even supposing that things are otherwise, 
and that individualized intelligence is formed by 
a gradual process, during the course of which, 
matter attracts its elements from Impersonified 
Intelligence or "Being," what we must demon- 
strate is that, once formed, it is, in a certain meas- 
ure, independent of the nervous matter during 
life, and that it persists after the disappearance 
of the body. 

We know very well that for many well-in- 
formed men this experimental demonstration no 
longer needs to be made. And we do not refer 
to believers, but to men who know and only be- 
lieve in reason as controlled by observations fur- 
nished through the evidence of their senses. But 
it is not for them that we are writing ; the form of 
this work will leave no doubt in their minds on 
that point. 

As to those who have not yet had the leisure 
or occasion to acquire this knowledge, we will 
ask them to grant one thing: As in Algebra 
we will suppose the unknown to be known. In 
otner words, we will conditionally admit the ex- 
istence of the soul, mind, spirit, intelligence, or 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. Ill 

whatever name we may give to that so-called 
spiritual entity. Let us then suppose its exist- 
ence, and from that hypothesis let us seek for 
the part played by it in the human being. 

In the ordinary state, the spirit, intimately in- 
corporated with matter, may be considered as 
being deprived of the major part of its superior 
faculties. A part of these faculties is, as ; t 
were, alienated in behalf of certain functions 
which they have to fulfill on the animic, instinct- 
ive and vegetative plane of the commaterial be- 
ing. We are not in a way wholly within our- 
selves. Our spirit has no more communication 
with the spiritual world, and frequently is but 
poorly served by its organs. This may explain 
how certain somnambulistic subjects are far more 
"lucid" in the hypnotic state, which is an incipient 
abmaterial condition, a beginning of the disen- 
gagement of that better part of ourselves, which 
in these later days has been termed the Incon- 
scient, subconscious, or subliminal. 

However this may be, the mind, which is nor- 
mally adapted for intelligent functions, uses as 



I 



112 PSYCHISM. 






best it can the energy which, in a continuously 
unstable state of equilibrium, exists in the or- 
gans of manifestation of intelligence. Let us 
explain: The less a composite body is chemi- 
cally stable, the less strong need be the influence, 
the force required to cause a modification in its 
composition. The substance that serves to form 
the cerebral cells is in such a condition. The 
fluiaic force created by a cerebral cell is of a 
peculiar nature, reminding us under some of its 
aspects, as we have already said, of the electric 
fluid. In order to produce this nervous exciting 
fluid which carries the mandates of Will to the 
peripheral organs, the cell must in some way be 
polarized in a certain direction. As the mind in 
itself is unable to act upon matter, and since, 
for that purpose, it is obliged to resort to energy, 
its action is made easier through the nature of 
a substance of constantly varying composition, 
such as is the organized and agencied matter, so 
as to produce, with a minimum of influence, a 
sort of microscopical torpedo, a little discharge 
of nervous fluid which will follow a determined 
direction that will always be the same in the 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 113 

normal state. Of course, this is only hypothet- 
ical, and we regret to say that the most recent 
investigations bearing on nervous cells (Golgi, 
Ramon y Cajal and others) have not elucidated 
the question. In short, the mind must act upon 
organised matter by means of animic energy. 

We have tried to make clear that a portion of 
the faculties of the spirit, or mind, are immo- 
bilized in inferior functions other than those of 
intelligence: Cellular nutrition, circulation of 
the blood, and of the permanent nervous current, 
reflexes, instincts, etc. These faculties are util- 
ized to produce excitation in different, apparently 
automotor centres, such as the cerebral, cerebel- 
lar, bulbar, medullar and sympathetic, whose rela- 
tive independence, made more evident by cer- 
tain pathological and psychical states, has caused 
it to be said that man was composed of a collec- 
tivity of Egos, which are hierarchically co-ordi- 
nated, but which have, each within itself, the 
characteristics and essential attributes of the in- 
dividual animal. This conception, to which its 
originator, Durand de Gros (Dr. Philips), a close 
observer, gave the name of polyzoism, presented 



114 PSYCHISM. 



itself to that author after some very delicate 
experiments of hypnotism and suggestion. 

If we admit the independence of the intellec- 
tual principle, one may conceive how, after a 
certain part of the cerebral substance has been 
destroyed, altered or diseased, the mind can no 
longer act upon this vacant department or trans- 
mit, through its medium, the orders of will to 
organs which are usually excited by the torpedo 
cells which are stilled or dead. But in many 
cases of cerebral lesion, where the patient sur- 
vives, a more or less perfect substitution becomes 
established, and one may admit, at such times, 
that the mind causes its will to be obeyed by other 
centres (memory, speech, motion, etc.) and trans- 
mits its orders by a circuitous, indirect and un- 
usual route. This is especially the case when 
the destruction of cerebral organs occurs slowly. 
The cases of complicated aphasia, agraphia, 
alexia from which a patient may recover by learn- 
ing again to talk, read, write, etc., with the right 
hemisphere or another part of his brain, although 
the primary lesions of Broca's convolution and 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 115 

other centres persist ; the integrity of all the func- 
tions, notwithstanding the atrophy of one cerebral 
hemisphere, are facts which do not in the least 
oppose, but, on the contrary, uphold, the thesis 
which we are presenting. 

Until now we have not, perhaps, advanced 
any very forcible argument which will induce the 
uninitiated reader to admit without contesting 
the existence of an independent spirit, and such 
reasonings as are found in the preceding pages 
have been presented more than once with greater 
development and effort in order to carry with them 
the greater conviction. That we have advanced 
them at all, is solely to< proceed methodically, 
for we place our expectations more in experi- 
mentation than in reasoning, per se, and discus- 
sion. Psychical facts are about to give us a more 
complete demonstration. We will present them 
(if we may be allowed the expression) in their 
order of increasing intensity. 

Let us first examine instances in which the 
mind, in condition nearly normal, perceives the 
existence of actions remote in space. For in- 
stance, in dreams: We have all often heard 



116 PSYCHISM. 



the narration of dreams that are like the reality 
of some actual event (or even one possible to oo 
cur in the future, but we intend putting asidt 
this question of the future). We could quote 
from many authors innumerable cases of this 
kind, but will limit ourselves to a few instances 
which have come under our personal observation, 
referring the reader for further example to the 
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search. 

A lady with whom the author is acquainted 
and who is willing to vouch for that which 
follows, had this dream : When she was twenty 
years old Mrs. C. was living in A , a sea- 
board town. She had a dream, the principal 
subject of which was a young man, who sought 
to marry her. The face of this young man, 
whom she did not know, inspired her with a cer- 
tain repugnance, and she tried in her dream to 
avoid him. When she awoke the dream was 
vividly recalled, as, she says, are most of her 
dreams. During the forenoon of the following 
day, having to go out, the young lady followed 
a street which led to the harbor; there she sud- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 117 

denly saw at the door of a brewer's establish- 
ment the self-same face of the young man who 
had wooed her in her dream. She was faint 
from surprise, and had to exert all her will 
power to avoid falling. Information having 
been sought from the brewer, who was an ac- 
quaintance of the family of the percipient, it was 
learned that the young man had come for the 
first time from beyond the sea, and had only 
landed that very morning. He had taken resi- 
dence at the brewer's, who was a relative, and 
with whom he expected to become associated in 
business. Later the young man, having pos- 
sibly heard of the dream, and it becoming an in- 
direct suggestion to him, asked the young lady's 
hand in marriage; but she, decidedly under a 
suggestion from the dream which haunted her 
whenever she happened to see the subject of it, 
declined the offer. 

Facts of this kind are so extremely numerous 
that one cannot continuously repeat that trite 
expression, "Coincidence," which has but the ad- 
vantage of relieving people from looking for a 
better explanation. This advantage, we acknowl- 



118 PSYCHISM. 



edge, is not adequate to our demand, and we are 
ill disposed to be content or satisfied with it. 

When we come to study somnambulism we will 
see what explanations can be given of these 
phenomena. 

In another circumstance a member of our own 
family had a dream which is sufficiently interest- 
ing to deserve being reported. In 1886, in Paris, 
steps were being taken to obtain for a friend a 
position as director of a special school. Our 
protege was in his specialty a very deserving and 
learned man, as proved by the services he has 
since rendered; hence every effort was made in 
his behalf. The support of nearly all the chiefs 
of the Government office, on which the position 
depended, had been gained, as well as the ap- 
proval of the Secretary of State, to whom the 
postulant had been strongly recommended by two 
or three members of the Legislature. In short, 
we were awaiting nothing but the publication of 
his nomination through the Journal OMciel, when 
one morning a letter was received from Mme. R., 
a relative who lived in the country, who was a 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 119 

great friend of the candidate's wife. At the end 
of her letter she said : "Tell me something about 
Mr. X. (the candidate). Last night in a dream 
I was much annoyed (she awakened crying, she 
wrote us since) because he had failed in his en- 
deavors to secure his position." 

Directly after finishing reading this sentence, 
but without paying much attention to it, our 
friend was announced and entered the room at 
once, his face showing unmistakable signs of dis- 
appointment. He had come to deliver a letter 
from the Minister's office in which he was in- 
formed "that he was not accepted as candidate 
for the position then open, but that he might 
be considered at the next vacancy." Our rela- 
tive's letter was shown to Mr. X., who was much 
astonished at it. 

Fortunately, after examination of the creden- 
tials of the candidates for the position, this de- 
cision was reversed a few weeks later, and Mr. 
X. filled satisfactorily the place until his death, 
which occurred in 1897. 

Another coincidence? Perhaps, but that im- 
portunate coincidence occurs wonderfully often. 



120 PSYCHISM. 



Lastly, before finishing with these examples of 
events perceived in dreams, the recital of which 
has come directly to us, we will cite the following 
one, which proves that distance exists not for the 
mind during our dreams, or, at least, some of our 
dreams, which we can commonly very well dis- 
tinguish from others through a something which 
we feel, but cannot clearly define. The follow- 
ing is a case which occurred in an American fam- 
ily, with whom we are acquainted : 

One of Mr. J.'s sons was, in 1871, in Germany, 
at the University of Tubingen, for the purpose 
of completing his studies. His family in New 
York had just received favorable reports from 
him, when the next night Mrs. J. awoke in tears 
after dreaming that she had seen her son in dan- 
ger of death. Seized with anxiety, she struck a 
light, and began wondering how she could obtain 
immediate news from so great a distance. Her 
daughter, at this point, entered her room, coming 
for the purpose of telling her mother that she 
had in a dream just seen her brother in a suf- 
fering condition. The mother and daughter had 
simultaneously had the same dream, which noth- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 121 

ing in the conservation of the previous evening 
could have induced. Still more interesting is the 
fact that young Mr. J. was really ill at that time 
in Tubingen. Luckily the strength of youth got 
the better of his illness, and he was able to soon 
return to New York. 

Must we accept the opinion, according to which 
the mind partly rids itself of the body during 
sleep, and receives from afar impressions of 
things whose vibrations are * carried along by the 
ether? 



CHAPTER IV. 

Summary: The general ignorance about hypno- 
tism. — If people knew better how to make use of 
that state they would obtain wonderful results. — But 
there is great danger in experimenting, in the actual 
state of ignorance of the laws which rule the various 
constituting principles of man. — The force emitted by 
the human body under the influence of will, and act- 
ing at a distance. — Experiments upon the transmis- 
sion of thought and sight through space. — Different 
states or degrees of Hypnosis. — These conditions are 
but phases of the gradual tendency towards the dis- 
sociation of the person. — Theory of sight, hearing, 
etc., at a distance. — Phantasma of the living. — A very 
interesting and instructive observation of the disso- 
ciation of the person. 

Those who have interested themselves with 
hypnotism, whether physicians or not, and who 
ignore the powerful means of investigation they 
have in their hands, are in a great majority. 

Through the medium of hypnotism, or rather 
of hypno-magnetism and suggestion, aided by 
other external agencies, most wonderful results 
can be obtained. This cannot be done with all 
subjects and without a special form of dietetics, 
for certain necessary and determined conditions 



124 PSYCHISM. 



must be reached. By dietetics, we understand 
not only an alimentary regimen, of a special 
nature and well known, but also a particular 
method of breathing, sleeping, thinking and dis- 
pensing one's affections. As the description of 
these modes of procedure does not enter within 
the bounds of this work, we will drop the subject. 
Let it suffice to say that hypnotists and magnetists 
have in their hands equally redoubtable instru- 
ments, double-edged weapons which fortunately 
they scarcely ever know how to use thoroughly. 
For this reason, though our observations are 
doubtless most important ones, we will only re- 
late a few of them. 

Those who hypnotize ordinarily await no for- 
mal authorization from their subjects. This is 
because they do not know all the possible conse- 
quences of their action; we, of course, refer to 
simple experiments, though we might hold a cer- 
tain reserve when pseudo-sleep is brought on for 
therapeutical purposes. But let all remember: 
When hypno-magnetism shall be better known, 
no subject will ever be placed under its influence 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 125 

without a preliminary conscious permission. In 
regard to this, we must say that the few who 
are initiated in the mysteries of Ceres-Hypnotita 
cannot repress their indignation and pity when 
they see at present the advertisements of 
some "Professor" of any style of "humbuggery," 
who, with the full permission of the law, holds 
sittings of Magnetism or Hypnotism. Uncon- 
sciousness protecting the unconscious ! It were 
as well that children were allowed to play with 
dynamite. 

However this may be, hypno-magnetism en- 
ables us to place in evidence the independence, 
or, if we prefer, the action without the human 
body, first of a particular force, a higher form of 
energy, and secondly of an intelligence which, in 
certain cases, directs this force. 

Let us, in a hypno-magnetic experiment, ex- 
amine the active subject, the operator. Even 
without his own knowledge, the latter more or 
less influences the passive subject by means of a 
force which radiates from him like a sort of aura, 
and which is nothing but the vibratory wave of 
his animic force, produced under his will and 



128 PSYCHISM. 



partly runs out of the jar. This is a phenomenon 
which the Fakirs of India easily determine by 
their mere presence or by the simple "laying on 
of hands" over the liquid. M. Pelletier, who has 
frequently written to us of this experiment, has 
not mentioned the fact that the subjects some- 
times complain, as soon as the experiment i* be- 
gun, of a pain in the arms and hands ; it is an 
observation made in our own experiments. This 
same painful sensation is complained of by those 
who produce direct handwriting between slates. 
But these facts are of little import, and can hardly 
serve for the demonstration we intend making. 
The transmission of thought is more useful. For 
that purpose we have experimented upon sub- 
jects who were sensitive to action at a distance, 
or to what has recently been called mental sug- 
gestion. The expression, Telepathy, comprises 
also mental suggestion, the existence of which is 
now well established. For instance, an experi- 
ment which we have tried frequently has been to 
say to a sleeping subject : "You will awaken when 
you feel that I want you to awaken;" then the 
author, busying himself in taking notes of the 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 129 

sitting which he had just had with the hypno- 
magnetized subject, would conceal himself behind 
a case of books, so that the subject, who could 
see (notwithstanding a thick bandage over the 
eyes), perceived nothing upon the hypnotist's 
countenance that could reveal the fact that he 
wanted to awaken him. 

At a given moment, sometimes in the midst, 
sometimes at the end of our proceedings, we 
would begin to will that the subject should 
awaken ; if at writing we had been employed, we 
would continue moving the pen over the paper, 
tracing such words, for instance, as "I will that 
you awaken ; you must awaken ; now wake up !" 
or even other sentences irrelative to the situa- 
tion, and the awakening would take place within 
from forty to sixty seconds. At other times 
when the subject had awakened we would begin 
to write and again will that the hypnosis should 
occur once more. Whenever this latter experi- 
ment was successful it was only partially so, for 
we would very soon hear these words: "Why 
should you wish me to fall asleep again ?" uttered 
by the subject, who would then arise, move and 



130 PSYCHISM. 



at the same time employ a certain means which 
we had shown him of resisting the magnetic sleep 
in case any one ever wanted to put him under an 
influence against his will. 

Notwithstanding their interest, we will not 
dwell longer on these facts, which the reader can 
study in the special treatises that have been writ- 
ten with regard to them. As for the explanation 
to be given of them, it is easy to deduct it from 
the theory exposed in these very essays, upon the 
constitution of the human being. Moreover, be- 
fore concluding, we will endeavor to give an ex- 
planatory theory of these phenomena. 

* * * 

The ordinary subjects, through whom the hyp- 
notic pseudo-sleep is studied, pass through a va- 
riety of phases which are far from succeeding one 
another as regularly as the authors describe them 
as doing. Yet these phases, or states, commonly 
succeed one another in the following order : 

i. The state of Charm (Liebeault), or of 
credulity (de Rochas) or " etat Second. 

2. The cataleptic. 

3. The somnambulistic. 

4. The lethargic. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 131 

They are, so to speak, the classical states ob- 
tained by suggestion or the fixation of the eyes, 
or by both processes combined. 

If other means are employed, and among them 
the special system of dietetics which we men- 
tioned before, as well as magnetic passes, and a 
firm will, as strongly exteriorized as possible 
(which also requires some training to obtain), 
one soon acquires the proof that the above men- 
tioned states are but a pathway toward a condition 
of dissociation, not only of the personality, but 
of the person itself. This state, which may be 
produced in a very short time after the subjects 
have been trained to it, is preceded by a fifth stage 
which follows the fourth (z. e., lethargic). This 
fifth is known to certain magnetizers and termed 
by them lucid somnambulism. A sixth state may 
be called the ecstatic. Then comes that which 
we call the state of dissociation. In this last stage 
the appearance of the subjects may vary accord- 
ing to the individual. Some are plunged in a 
state of apparent death ; others seem to be petri- 
fied, their eyes being kept wide open and the 
pupils being extraordinarily dilated and fixed. 



132 PSYCHISM. 



The last named sometimes speak of subjects, 
things and scenes which appear to and sometimes 
actually have their existence at a variable dis- 
tance. It is not always possible to ascertain 
whether they tell the truth ; their descriptions may 
be absolutely imaginary, or contain errors as to 
time and locality; in other instances, notwith- 
standing, we find that their descriptions are abso- 
lutely correct, even when the deed which is seen 
takes place numbers of miles distant ! This state 
might be called that of speaking ecstasy. 

Those who are in a state of apparent death sel- 
dom recollect in a spontaneous manner the things 
they have felt or seen. 

This last stage could not be forced any further 
without great danger; and we will add that it is 
not safe to leave the subject too long in it. For 
the state that would follow would be one of com- 
plete and final dissociation. The mind, having 
broken the animic thread which was to bring it 
back to the body, after having attracted from 
without too great a quantity of vital energy, 
would find itself liberated forever, perhaps with 
great advantage to itself, but certainly, to the deep 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 133 

and terrible embarrassment of the temerarious ex- 
perimenter, who had ventured without soundings 
in an unexplored and rocky sea. 

But when the operation takes place under a 
safe hand, this is what may be observed: The 
subject, after having rapidly passed through the 
various stages we have mentioned, begins that of 
dissociation. The mind escapes from its bonds, 
together with a certain amount of vital or animic 
energy, and places itself in communication with 
external things. At first, this loosening of bonds 
consists in a simple radiation about the body, and 
at this stage the subjects are able to read by 
means of their hands, forehead, epigastrium, feet, 
etc. They may cause objects to move around 
them without apparent contact or manifest sensi- 
tiveness outside of the body (9). In one word, 
the "openings of the lantern" are not only the 
eyes, the ears or the other organs of special sense, 
but one unique sense enlightens itself through all 
the pores of the body. Then there is no more 
brain for perception and thought, but perception 

(9) Vide de Rochas, Exteriorisation tie la Motricite ; and 
Exteriorisation de la SensioilitS. Paris. 



134 PSYCHISM. 



and thought are everywhere. In this state the 
subject can, by means of the ambient ether whose 
vibrations cause a vibration in unison with his 
exteriorized animic ether, understand a multitude 
of past, present and even future events. 

We do not wish to dwell too long on these mat- 
ters, neither will we endeavor to accumulate 
proofs of them. Proofs have already been fur- 
nished to a goodly number of scientists, and one 
has only to peruse the periodicals devoted to 
psychical subjects, and especially the S. P. R.'s 
Proceedings, to become familiar with their impor- 
tance. However, if, in the name of conservatism 
or neophobia, these data were objected to as anti- 
scientific, we might recall that Laplace, an agnos- 
tic avant la lettre, who certainly was one of the 
most positive scientists of his time, seemed to 
have had an intimation of the possibility of the 
prevision of the future, as may be judged by the 
following remarks : "An intelligence," he writes, 
"which for a given moment should know all the 
forces by which nature is animated and the re- 
spective situation of the beings which compose it, 
and which were vast enough to subject these data 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 135 

to analysis, would embrace in the same formula 
the movements of the greatest bodies in the Uni- 
verse and those of the smallest atom; nothing 
would be uncertain for it, and the future as well 
as the past would be present before its eyes" (i). 
Let us analyze Laplace's thought. If we are 
able to thoroughly penetrate the meaning of what 
precedes we shall see that this great and pro- 
found astronomer and mathematician who re- 
pulsed the "Hypothesis" of a Personal God (2) 
conceived the Universe exactly in the same man- 
ner as all the great Pantheists, and by no means 
disputed the idea of the presence of ineffable in- 
telligence, any more than that of Energy (anima 
mundi) in the totality of things. He was not un- 
aware that a vibration having once been pro- 
duced, the causes, which had determined it, ex- 
isted not only in all time past, but he knew also 
this vibration to be marked on the future, where 
Intelligence, whereof he speaks, might foresee it 

(1) Tlieorie Analytique des ProbabiMtes. Introduction. 

(2) "Sire, we are in no need of such an hypothe- 
sis," he answered Napoleon, who had asked him what 
role he attributed to God. 



136 PSYCHISM. 



through an exact knowledge of past and present 
ethereal waves of which it is naught but the 
forced consequence. 

And, as writes an able mathematician whom 
we have already quoted: "This condition applies 
not only to those luminous vibrations which have 
birth at the surface of bodies, or at a very slight 
depth, but also to vibrations of all kinds which 
are produced within their mass; those, for in- 
stance, which our most secret thoughts impress 
upon the molecules forming the brain; all those 
movements are felt and kept by the Universe 

(3)- 



}> 



Is there any need of adding that when an intel- 
ligence disengages itself from matter, in which it 
is provisionally imprisoned, sufficiently to receive 
the impression of vibrations transmitted by the 
Ether, it is conceivable that this partly liberated 
intelligence may be able to perceive, in a manner 
more or less clear, the modifications impressed on 
that universal "fluid" by the external influences 

(3) E. Jouffret. Op. cit. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 137 

including the thought which in other persons puts 
in motion the molecules of which our brain is 
formed? Thus is mental suggestion explained, 
as are the transmission of thought and sight 
(clairvoyance) as well as hearing (clairaudience) 
at a distance and other forms of telepathy. We 
fancy that it is not useless to insist upon this 
fact, that even the slightest degree of hypnosis 
is a beginning of dissociation which in some way 
is at first internal. Both spirit and vital energy 
are concentrated internally and leave (at least in 
a certain measure) the periphery. Therefore we 
see the first state of hypno-magnetism signalled 
by anaesthesia of the skin and mucous surfaces. 
We have thus been able, in nervous young women 
who were taken with incoercible attacks of nausea 
at the mere sight of the laryngoscopic mirror, to 
make most prolonged and complete examinations 
while hypno-magnetized, and to introduce instru- 
ments below the vocal cords, without causing the 
slightest reflex. In some subjects, from the first 
moments of pseudo-sleep, abmaterialisation is 
produced, and, simultaneously, the external ex- 
pansion of the sensorium verum, of the unique 



138 PSYCHISM. 



sense, is effected. In one of our experiments, at 
the first sitting, a young hypnotized subject was 
able to tell the color of two different objects, two 
sheets of paper, one white, the other blue, which 
were placed on the top of her head, while her 
eyes were closed and the eyeballs turned upward. 
The subject had her back turned toward our desk, 
from the drawer of which we took these objects 
without allowing' them to pass before her face. 
At the second sitting we held a watch over the 
top of her head ; after a few seconds of hesitation 
she told the time exact. Knowing the faculty 
which hypnotized persons sometimes possess for 
a quick sense of time, we had retarded the watch 
twenty minutes. After a few days this subject 
(i) was able to read, although blindfolded, in 



(1) A well-known physician of New York, to 
whom we presented this subject, was so deeply im- 
pressed by what he saw that he spontaneously wrote 
us the following letter: 

"228 West 34th Street, 
"New York, July 20th, 1889. 
"My Dear Doctor: 

"It is with the greatest pleasure that I send you — 
although unasked for — the following description of 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 139 



the same manner as did a young woman whom 
we will mention later. 

These experiments are beginning to reveal to 
us facts which are of the utmost importance. 
They prove at least that sensory phenomena may 
be independent of the special organs of sense 
through which they are normally transmitted : 
the nihil in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in 
sensu, of Zeno (of Citium) and of Aristotle, may 
now be discussed from new standpoints. 

Although it has not been our intention in this 

an experiment which you kindly showed me yester- 
day. 

"You hypnotized a young girl of about eighteen, 
and I ascertained that her eyes were strongly at- 
tracted towards the median line and upwards in a 
most exaggerated state of temporary converging 
strabismus. 

"Afterwards, you placed on her closed lids thick 
cotton pads, and on those, as an additional precau- 
tion, you tied a well folded silk handkerchief. The 
whole prevented her, I am satisfied, of absolutely see- 
ing anything normally. 

"Then I chose a volume from among the numer- 
ous books accumulated on your desk and book stand, 
purposely selecting one of a size and cover similar to 
most of the others. I placed this book on the head of 



140 PSYCHISM. 



work to give preponderance to our own experi- 
ments, yet we cannot refrain from mentioning 
one made in Paris in April, 1887, which we re- 
peated on various occasions with marked success, 
notably at a special meeting of a club at which 
about forty friends of the author, physicians, en- 
gineers, literary and other learned men, princi- 
pally skeptics, were present. The author was a 
member of the club, and it might be mentioned 
that his experiments followed a lecture by M. 
Yves Guyot, ex- Secretary of State for Public 



the girl, who, after a few moments' hesitation, at my 
request read correctly the title printed on the cover. 
The experiment was tried again with a journal picked 
up among others, and met with a complete success. 
At the same seance, several book titles and papers 
were read in the same manner. 

"During these experiments I remained seated near 
the subject, and I am convinced that it would have 
been impossible for her to be cognizant of what she 
read, otherwise than through the faculty heretofore 
unknown to me, and of which I witnessed the ef- 
fects. 

"If you deem this letter of any import, I gladly 
authorize you to use it according to your pleasure. 
"Yours sincerely, 
GEORGE G. VAN SCHAICK, M. D." 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 141 

Works, who discoursed on the suppression of 
"octroi" (City Custom duties). A relation of 
the experiment was published in a provincial 
paper, for which it was written by one of the 
witnesses (4). 

The subject experimented with was a young 
woman, of Jewish origin, about twenty years of 
age. Once asleep and in an intermediary state 
of abmaterialization, which was neither lethargy 
nor speaking ecstasis, but rather that which pro- 
fessional magnetizers call lucid somnambulism, 
we placed a roll of cotton over each of her eyes, 
and then a large thick napkin was folded and 
bound over the eyes and around the head. 

The first time we tried this experiment, some 
thirteen years ago, we were considerably aston- 
ished at its success, for at that time, we must 
confess, we were not possessed with the knowl- 
edge which a long series of experiments, and 
longer course of serious studies, have since given 
us in this matter. 

We took from our library the first book falling 

(4) L'Eclaireur du Berry, published at Issoudun 
(Indre), number of April 28th, 1887. 



142 PSYCHISM. 



under our hand, and opened it over the subject's 
head, the cover uppermost. Without knowing 
at what page it had opened, we held the printed 
matter at perhaps a couple of centimetres above 
the head of the hypno-magnetized young woman. 
We then ordered the subject to read the first line 
of the page that was to her left ; after a moment's 
waiting, she exclaimed : "Ah, yes ; I see. Wait 
a moment." Then she continued: "L'identite 
ramene encore a l'unite, car si Fame. . . 
She stopped and then said again: "I cannot read 
more. It is enough ; it tires me." We acceded 
to her inclination, without insisting further, and 
turning to the book (it was a volume on philoso- 
phy) found that the first line, minus two words, 
had been correctly seen and read by the dbma- 
terialized Invisible of the sleeper ( 5 ) . 



(5) When we say it had been seen, we mean, 
rather, perceived. One of our subjects in analyzing 
this phenomenon (we have taught her to remember, 
which causes her to be far more interested in our 
experiments) states as follows: "When I see with 
the top of my head, there is something like an in- 
distinct red light, which lightens up things without 
changing their color. I can see you plainly with my 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 143 

After tracing with chalk upon the floor a word 
or name the hypnotized subject, with eyes close- 
ly bandaged, could be brought in from an ad- 
joining room, and as soon as her feet — she had 
on her shoes — covered the written section she 
would pause and unhesitatingly read without 
mistake, invariably adding the following appro- 
priate reflections: "How badly it is written. It 
is upside down" (and she would turn around), 
or else: "Why, it is So and So's name, with a 
line drawn under it !" When she was conducted 
to (with bandaged eyes, as mentioned above) 
and placed over the word written on the floor, 
she was made to approach backward. Her head, 
she held in a somewhat forced extension, in order 
to convince her witnesses that it was utterly im- 
possible for her to see, even had her bandages 
been imperfectly adjusted or removed. We 
might report a great many more facts as inter- 
forehead or the anterior part of the upper portion of 
my body. Your eyes look as if they were made of 
fire. When I read with my hands the light is not so 
red." Much might be said in analyzing this magnifi- 
cent phenomenon which has revealed many other 
interesting things to us. 



144 PSYCHISM. 



esting as these, but one must limit oneself to the 
allotted line and keep within the prescribed 
boundary. We wished only to demonstrate that 
the sensus internum could at a given time and 
under given conditions enter directly in relation 
with the external world without resorting to the 
ways to which it is constrained — in ordinary life. 
Does this not at once lead us to admit the exist- 
ence of an intelligence independent of the matter 
which serves it for its manifestations of the corn- 
material state? 

sfs * * 

We have already spoken of dreams which we 
must admit to be different from the ordinary 
run of dreams, in the course of which persons 
and places never before seen were visited, and 
which time, later on, made cognizant to^ the per- 
cipients. There are other conditions than the 
dream produced during normal sleep, or a sleep 
that has been normally begun. Although such 
dreams seldom occur in a spontaneous manner, 
without preliminary training, they nevertheless 
exist. To those who desire to give further study 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 145 

to this subject and who are interested in things 
pertaining to Nature, we would commend 
"Phantasms of the Living/' a book written by 
Messrs. Ed. Gurney, Fred. Myers and Fr. Pod- 
more, prominent members of the Society for 
Psychical Research. 

Personally we have observed several facts be- 
longing to the above cited category, notably some 
in which a photograph of the phantasm of a liv- 
ing being, left permanent proofs of the phenom- 
ena, and another from which the most complete 
details were obtained from the person to whom 
the "incident" occurred. 

Since the publication of our work on Spiritism, 
we received innumerable documents of more or 
less importance. We also received letters and 
visits from a number of people making inquiries 
and relating certain incidents in their lives which 
they could not explain. One being especially in- 
teresting, we will relate it in substance : 

Mr. H. is a tall, blond young man, about thirty 
years of age, and very talented as an engraver. 
His father was a Scotchman and his mother a 



146 PSYCHISM. 



Russian. Both father and mother were gifted as 
"Mediums." The father in particular possessed 
very strong mediumistic faculties. Although 
this young man was born in a spiritualistic fam- 
ily, he had never concerned himself with Spirit- 
ualism, and had never experienced any abnormal 
feelings until the moment when he underwent 
what he called the "accident," about which he con- 
sulted us in the beginning of 1887. His story is 
as follows : 

"A few days ago I came home in the evening at 
about ten o'clock, when I suddenly felt a strange 
sensation of lassitude which I could not explain. 
Nevertheless, I decided not to retire at once, and 
so lighted my lamp and left it upon the night 
table, near the bed. I took a cigar, lit it over 
the flame of the lamp, and after taking a few 
puffs at it stretched myself upon a lounge. 

"No sooner had I leaned back lazily, in order to 
rest my head upon the cushion of the sofa, than 
I experienced a sensation of dizziness and vacu- 
ity, and it appeared as if the surrounding objects 
were all revolving around me. Suddenly I found 
myself transported to the middle of my room, 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 147 

Being surprised at this displacement, of which 
I had not been conscious, I looked about me and 
my astonishment grew on me. 

"I saw myself, lying on the sofa, resting easily 
and comfortably, my left hand was raised, the 
elbow being supported, and held my cigar, whose 
light I saw in the shadow cast by the lamp-shade. 
The first thought entertained was, that I had 
probably fallen asleep, and was perhaps experi- 
encing the consequences of a dream. Neverthe- 
less, I acknowledged to myself that I had never 
before had such a dream and one that seemed so 
realistic. I will say more : I was impressed that 
nothing in life had ever been so intensely real. 
Then, convincing myself that I had not been 
dreaming, suddenly the idea possessed me that I 
was dead. At the same time I remembered what 
I had heard about spirits and I imagined that I 
had become one. All that I had learnt on this 
matter unfolded itself at great length to my 
mind's eye, and in much less time than it takes 
to recall it. At the time, I remember well, I was 
then consumed with a feeling akin to anxiety 
and regret about the things left unfinished and 



148 PSYCHISM. 



undone; my life appeared to me as a sort of 
formula. 

"I drew toward myself, or rather toward the 
body, which I already thought had become my 
corpse. Then, something claimed my attention 
which at first I did not comprehend. I saw my- 
self breathing, but, more than that, I saw myself 
internally, and noted that my heart was beating 
slowly and feebly, though with regularity. I 
saw my blood, red, and surging through large 
vessels. At this moment I realized that there 
must have been some peculiar faintness or syn- 
cope. Yet, I reasoned, persons thus affected 
have no recollection of what occurred to them 
during their attack. And then I feared that I 
would remember nothing when I should awake. 

"Feeling rather more assured, I cast my eyes 
about me, wondering how long this condition 
would last ; I troubled no more about my body, 
the other self, still resting on the couch. I 
looked at my lamp which was burning on silently 
and thinking that it was dangerously near the 
bed and might set on fire the curtains, I stretched 
my hand to trim the ratchet-wheel, in order to 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 149 

put out the light; but at this point another sur- 
prise awaited me. I could feel the wheel with 
its milled edge, perfectly well. I perceived each 
one of its markings, but, manipulate it as I would, 
there seemed to be a cessation of power, and my 
fingers remained absolutely unable to turn the 
wheel. An examination of self was next made, 
and I saw that, although I could pass my hand 
through myself, I could still feel my body, which 
appeared to me (if memory serves me well) to 
be robed in white. I then placed myself before 
my mirror in front of the chimney. Instead of 
seeing my reflected image, I was conscious that 
my sight extended at will and could penetrate the 
wall. The posterior aspect of the pictures and 
articles of furniture in my neighbor's room be- 
came visible to me; I saw the interior of his 
apartment. I realized that there was no light in 
his room, yet, I saw everything distinctly through 
the medium of a ray of light issuing from my 
epigastrium. 

"It occurred to me to visit this room, although 
I was unacquainted with my neighbor, who was 
not in Paris at that time. The moment I desired 



150 PSYCHISM. 



to go, I felt myself being transported there. In 
what manner? I do not know, but presumably 
through the wall, and with the same facility as 
my sight could do it. In short, I was for the 
first time in life, in my neighbor's apartment. I 
scanned the room, committed its aspect to mem- 
ory and then went toward a bookcase, where I 
noticed particularly the titles of several works 
that were placed upon a shelf within range of 
my sight. 

"To change my location, I needed only to wish 
it, and without the slightest effort I would find 
myself wherever I desired to go. 

"From then, until I regained consciousness, my 
recollection is confused. I know that I traveled 
extensively, I believe, in Italy, but do not remem- 
ber how I employed my time. It seemed, having 
lost control of myself, and being no longer master 
of my mind, I was carried here and there 
wherever thought directed me. I had not yet 
learned how to rule it, and before I could direct 
it, it would disperse me, so to speak ; "la folle du 
logis" now, was carrying the house about with 
her. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 151 

"I may add, in fine, that I awoke at five o'clock 
in the morning, stiff and cold, on my sofa, and 
still held the unfinished cigar within my fingers. 
My light had gone out and had smoked the chim- 
ney. I arose and got into bed, but without being 
able to go to sleep, and directly after was shaken 
by a chill. At last sleep came. When I awoke, 
the day was well advanced. 

"On the same day, by means of an innocent 
trick, I managed to obtain a view of my neigh- 
bor's apartment. I induced the janitor to ac- 
company me to see if everything was in order. 
Through this subterfuge I gained admittance to 
the room visited the night before, and found the 
articles of furniture, the pictures, as well as the 
titles of the books which I had observed atten- 
tively, just as I had seen them on my nocturnal 
visit. 

"I have been careful not to speak of this to any 
one, fearing that I would be looked on as insane 
or the prey of an hallucination." 

On finishing his story Mr. H. asked: "What 
do you think o>f it, Doctor ?" 






152 PSYCHISM. 



At the time that Mr. H. came to tell of his 
experience of this "accident," we already knew 
that things like these might occur, and we knew 
partially, the reason for them; notwithstanding 
we looked at the speaker scrutinizingly, in order 
to see whether he was not endeavoring to dupe 
and mystify us; he was, however, very serious, 
and appeared to be quite distressed over what 
had happened to him. Then we explained that, 
in all likelihood, he was gifted with truly extra- 
ordinary faculties, and if he so wished they could 
easily be developed. We also explained to him 
the regimen necessary to be followed, which he 
promised would be adhered to most vigorously, 
and that he would come and see us again, a fort- 
night hence. He came, but only, unfortunately, 
to tell us that he was about to get married, and 
that he could not give himself up to any other 
experiment than that of conjugal life, which, 
as is too well known, is not favorable to the ac- 
quirement of the autonomous faculties of ab- 
materialization. 

We have no doubt that if this case were placed, 
without preamble, before the eyes of one ignorant 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 153 

of the elements of the new Psychology, of which 
we are only sketching an outline, he would, per- 
haps, regard it as interesting in several ways, 
and credit it in part, or else deem the whole as 
preposterous. We can only attempt that which 
is possible for us. Let the reader endeavor to 
convince himself. We do not ask him to be- 
lieve. We have cited the occurrence as it was 
related to us, without adding anything to it. Is 
it true? As a single particular fact, we cannot 
have a scientific certainty on the matter; all that 
we know is, that generically it may be true. 

Besides, as we said above, in the work of 
Messrs. Gurney, Myers and Podmore (Phan- 
tasms of the Living) the reader will find a num- 
ber of interesting observations analogous to 
ours. It must be understood these occurrences 
are very rare. If they were ordinary, there would 
be no books written about then ; at any rate, they 
would astonish no one. But they exist, and 
prove, moreover, that even during life, man may 
witness, as it were, the separation or dissociation 
of his various principles or elements. These in- 
stances will doubtless be of use to us when we 



154 PSYCHISM. 



take up the study of man, considered in after 
life. 

We advise the reading- of "Phantasms of the 
Living, "not that we accept the theory of telepathy 
of its authors, but because we wish the reader to 
cease wondering — for astonishment, like its rela- 
tive, fear, is a poor adviser — as he will soon see 
things that are far more extraordinary. We 
may recommend also the study of our dear friend, 
Colonel de Rochas' book, Les Forces non definies, 
and the S. P. R.'s proceedings. 



More than twenty years after the discovery of 
the composition of air by Lavoisier, the celebrated 
chemist, Priestley still held fast, so they say, to 
the phlogistical theory which had been brought 
out by Stahl. Many years after the brilliant dis- 
coveries of Pasteur and the labors of hundreds 
of his disciples, a number of physicians and 
surgeons still refused to admit the existence of 
microbes. It must be said that they are those 
who are content getting along on what they 
learned long ago. Not being willing to give 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 155 

themselves the trouble of studying and experi- 
menting, and in short, of seeing, they find an 
excuse for their ignorance in a sorry sort of 
skepticism, and consider it much easier to deny 
a priori than to gain knowledge through work. 

The same thing occurs with regard to the phe- 
nomena upon which we base our endeavors to 
prove the existence, the independence and the 
survival of a conscious, intellectual principle in 
man. 

The objection may be entered that the demon- 
stration of the phenomena by which we intend to 
prove the existence of this principle, has not yet 
been substantiated, and that our first effort should 
be directed to this end. We will reply that we 
have already given it, not as an originator, but 
in following several most distinguished and in- 
contestable scientists. We do not pretend to 
oblige the wilfully blind to see. 

So much the worse for those who will persist 
in keeping their eyes closed. 



CHAPTER V. 

Summary. — Phenomenal psychology. — It is des- 
tined to teach man his real nature. — Mediums: What 
are they? — Opinions of the scientist de Rochas upon 
certain undefined forces. — Animic, ethereal, astral 
and psychical forces. — Occasional visibility of Animic 
force. — Different varieties of abmaterializing subjects. 
— Usual passiveness of mediumnity. — Its impulsive^ 
ness and suggestibility. — Facts about fascination. — 
The yoghis, as described by an Arabic author, 600 
years ago. — The yoghis of to-day. — Resurrection of a 
yoghi after a voluntary burial lasting for several 
months. — There are "miracles" in all religions. — 
What should the scientist's opinion be on this sub- 
ject? 

If there is a branch of human knowledge that 
has caused the most heated discussions, the most 
ardent controversies, which has provoked the 
most unjustifiable a priori denials, as well as the 
most ill-considered assertions, it is without doubt 
phenomenal psychology. 

And yet it is within that experimental science 
that we are about to search for the principal basis 
of Future Science. It is the one that is to teach 
to man his true nature, at the same time that it 
will bring him in close relationship (as much as 



158 PSYCHISM. 



will be allowed to his intelligence) with the inti- 
mate knowledge of things. 

The objective phenomena of external Psychol- 
ogy may be studied by means of subjects, of in- 
dividuals, gifted with a special and usually pass- 
ive faculty of abmaterialization of the animic 
energy. These subjects are known in modern 
language under the name of mediums. 

Mediums ! Behold a word that lacks euphony 
for a number of auditory nerves. What is a 
medium? The name has been given to a certain 
category of individuals who are supposed to be 
able to act as intermediaries — as mediums — be- 
tween the living and the dead. Indeed, it is per- 
fectly true that some individuals, predisposed 
through constitution, an«d developed through 
training, may serve as intermediaries between 
the living and commonly invisible intelligences, 
which sometimes pretend, though not always, that 
they are the spirits of individuals who formerly 
lived the same life as ours (6.) But we think 

(6) De Rochas {op. cit.) says at the end of his 
book: "After having established, by means of phe' 
nomena verified by myself or admitted by every one, 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 159 

one may see in this but one side of an interesting 
question, as will be seen later on. 

* * * 

Man as we see him is an intelligence — a globule 
emanated from the Universal Intelligence — pos- 
sessing at his service a force borrowed from En- 
ergy, which is equally universal. This force, 
under this form, is of a higher quality, quite 
akin, in all probabilities, to the superior form of 
energy termed by ancient scientists, Astral Light, 
Akasa by those of the East, of which modern sci- 
ence has a vague idea, and which it calls Ether 
(a word borrowed from physicists of the Greek 
School). This subtle as well as powerful force 
penetrates the body of all things existing. We 
have a store of it, seated wherever the nervous 
current circulates, that is to say, in the whole 

the existence within the human body of a force analo- 
gous to electricity and able to radiate externally, I 
have followed, by means of historical testimony, the 
more and more powerful manifestations of this force, 
showing that there is between them a continuous 
bond, and that they sometimes serve to put us in com- 
munication with beings whose nature we ignore." 



160 PSYCHISM. 



body, but, in the greatest amount and in as 
many reservoirs, in the blood, the cerebro spinal 
axis and in the great sympathetic plexuses; the 
solar plexus appearing, according to ancient 
writings and also to our own experiments, to be 
furnished with it in large measure. It is not 
without reason that the anatomists have surnamed 
this plexus, the abdominal brain. 

This animic, ethereal, astral force, borrowed 
from Ether, remains under normal conditions, at 
least from appearances, to be strictly limited to 
the substance which composes the body, and is 
held in bondage by its tissues : this is a state which 
we propose to call commaterial (cum materia). 
The great majority of human beings, to speak 
of genus homo only, are commaterials. But there 
exist individuals who, either naturally or by 
means of the dietetic regimen which I have al- 
ready mentioned, possess the faculty, the power 
of exteriorizing, that is of causing to flow out, 
and to extend their animic force at a distance 
more or less remote from their persons, and of 
making this force produce a variety of phenom- 
ena, viz. : physical, animic and intellectual. This 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 161 

force, which in latter times, eminent scientists (7) 
have termed psychical, finds itself in an abma- 
terial state (ab materia), that is to say, outside 
of the matter which commonly condenses and 
stores it up, and by which it is animated. Hence 
we call it animic force. 

The first degree of exteriorization of animic 
force under the influence of will was placed in 
evidence by Dr. Barety, who deemed it appro- 
priate to call it radiating neuric force. 

When in the dark near a person whose animic 
force freely abmaterializes itself (for instance, 
in seances during which the absence of light is 
necessary) one may see it floating upon the gar- 
ments of the individual who produces it, emanat- 
ing chiefly at the level of the epigastric region or 
of the larger arterial trunks, under the form of 
vaporous and luminous matter. One may obtain 
an idea of this light by the illusion which it 
one day caused us: We had gone to see a sick 
man in a house in Rue Maubeuge, Paris. The 
patient was a professional medium, who, from 

(7) See, in our work on Spiritism, references to 
the experiments of these scientists. 



162 PSYCHISM. 



a series of experiments, performed on him, was 
in a state of nervous prostration. He could bear 
neither light nor noise, and remained lying upon 
his bed, where he was fretting like a child. On 
entering his room, at about nine in the evening, 
we found it almost totally dark. Suddenly, while 
questioning him, we saw a light upon one of his 
arms, which became plainly visible. The first 
thought that suggested itself was that a moon 
beam had entered the room through a half-drawn 
blind, but on changing our position, taking a 
seat between the light and the window, we found 
that it wrought no change in the weak radiancy 
projected by this lunar-seeming light. Besides, 
we ascertained that there was no moonlight, nor 
any other light, coming through the window. 
Other luminous points evinced themselves here 
and there on the surface of the patient's body, he 
appearing, however, to be utterly unconscious of 
this phenomenon. On touching these points we 
felt nothing abnormal, but the light would dis- 
appear on being approached. There was no phos- 
phoric odor from whence the light issued, and, 
moreover, the appearance of this little luminous 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 163 

cloud did not at all resemble the fumes pro- 
duced in the dark by objects rubbed with phos- 
phorus. 

We have frequently been able to see in well- 
developed subjects, the issuing, under one form or 
another, of this force and its condensation in full 
daylight (8). We could not characterize its ap- 
pearance better than by comparing it to the vesi- 
cular state which precedes the liquefaction of 
carbonic acid gas liquefied under pressure in a 
glass tube. Here we must say (not that we want 
to establish any comparison, since gas becomes 
heated by pressure) that when that force is pro- 
duced from the bodies of subjects, one experi- 
ences, especially in summer or in a warm at- 
mosphere, a decided sensation of coolness. It is 
a phenomenon which we have already mentioned 
in previous writings (9). 

But the mediums are not the only ones who 
can develop and exteriorize this force; other 

(8) On one occasion we and two other persons 
saw a hand moving over our chest. 

(9) Author. Op. cit. 



164 PSYCHISM. 



exteriorizing agents may exist, really do exist 
and are far superior to mediums. Only contrarily 
to the latter they allow no foreign influence to 
direct their "astral" body, that is to say, their 
exteriorizable animic force. It is their own spirit 
which directs it. The spiritualistic medium, on 
the other hand, is often the plaything, or at least 
the instrument, of inferior and even very baneful 
occult influences ; for our part, we have seen 
striking examples of this. Being an essentially 
passive being, the medium is not only directed 
by foreign influences, good, bad or indifferent, but 
he is exposed to receive suggestions from the 
minds of the skeptical witnesses of his perform- 
ances, and thus to attempt the very trick which he 
is strongly and a priori suspected to accomplish. 
He is subject to being dominated over, guided and 
carried away by his own evil passions, which are 
insufficiently restrained through a will which be- 
comes accustomed to yield and abdicate in favor 
of the passivity which is necessary for the pro- 
duction of the phenomena. The needs of his 
physical body, enervated through successive 
losses of animic energy, can be restrained, but 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 165 



with difficulty. And thus, barring a few honest 
exceptions, one generally sees mediums capable 
of and really producing authentic psychical phe- 
nomena, phenomena which cannot be disputed, 
who yet resort to frauds, tne most odious frauds, 
which sometimes are but rudely concealed. We 
have known an honest young man, a medium, 
non-professional, through the power of whose 
faculties the real phenomena of levitation and 
transportation of objects could be seen. He fre- 
quently acknowledged that he often felt tempted 
to add something to that which he was obtain- 
ing; he had a violent desire to simulate a phe- 
nomenon ranging in standard much lower than 
that which his natural faculty was capable of 
producing. As he analyzed this impulsion, he 
said that it was partially due to a desire on his 
part to astonish the assistants and to avoid the 
fatigue attendant with genuine manifestations 
( i ) , but was indulged in principally for the self- 
gratification of playing a good trick and deceiv- 

(1) Frequently after sittings, when mediums have 
produced phenomena of great intensity, they are ut- 
terly exhausted. 



166 PSYCHISM. 



ing people. Yet, he added that something which 
he could not exactly grasp (probably of an im- 
pulsive nature) added itself to the preceding 
causes and seemed to him to be quite forcible. 
He assured us, however, that he had always re- 
sisted that temptation. 

In short, the ordinary medium is a passive and 
impulsive individual, and frequently an incom- 
plete one. We have known of one who wag im- 
potent, while another among the mediums whom 
we have studied, was a hermaphrodite. 

In the same way that one may be born a me- 
dium, or may develop artificially his passive fac- 
ulty, in like manner one may, after a more or 
less extended period of training — if born with- 
out dispositions — succeed in exteriorizing one's 
animic force while still judiciously keeping it 
under the control of will. Thus, M. de Rochas 
quotes the case of Fabre d'Olivet, who was able 
from a given distance, to cause any book in his 
library to come within his hands. This author 
also quotes the case of a man (probably still 
living), who was able, through looking at a bird 
perched on a branch, to force it to come to his 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 167 

hands. Every one knows the story of Apollonius 
of Tyana and the hundreds of similar narrations 
found in the "Lives of the Saints." All travellers 
who have lived for a certain time in the East have 
seen most interesting facts of this kind. As it is 
not our intention to make a ponderous volume 
of these essays, we must refrain from citing too 
many of these interesting cases and facts; the 
reader who desires to learn more on the subject 
will find in our preceding work such data as may 
interest him. We will only quote two more in- 
stances which were related through a letter sent 
after a conversation which was held at the house 
of M. Maurel, then a Depute of Var, by Mr. C. 
Demole, once a French Consul in the Extreme 
East. We quote a few extracts from the letter, 
which its author has allowed us to produce. 

After having begun with a profession of ma- 
terialistic and skeptical faith, our correspondent 
continues thus : 

"In 1872, in July, while in Cambodge, I hap- 
pened to be with a bonze and some friends of 
mine (among them, said Mr. D., in the course of 
our conversation, was a Catholic Missionary) in 



168 PSYCHISM. 



a room near the college of the bonzes. (Mr. D. 
does not say in what town; he had mentioned it 
during the conversation, but we have not recol- 
lected the name.) We were discussing the sub- 
ject of our religion and its miracles ..." 

The bonze held that a miracle proved nothing, 
and offered to show us one : 

". . . There were six in all surrounding 
and attentively observing him as he looked at 
one and then the other, in making magnetic 
passes. Suddenly it appeared as if a cloud were 
gradually enveloping him, and within a space of 
thirty seconds he disappeared. A moment later 
he entered by a back door, came towards us with 
a serious look, and asked whether we were con- 
vinced of his power ! 

"Another fact reads as follows : 

"I have seen in British India, at Bombay, a 
Hindoo who made us hold (there were five of us) 
between the thumb and forefinger, the edge of 
a bowl made of hammered brass, of a diameter of 
perhaps forty centimetres (16 inches) and mount- 
ed on a tripod. We were in a parlor moderately 
lighted. After innumerable gestures and invo- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 169 

cations to Brahma, which lasted fully twenty- 
five minutes, we saw with stupefaction that the 
bowl had disappeared while we were looking at 
and touching it. How did this happen ? I could 
not find out. I examined the table upon which 
the vase had been resting, and nothing showed 
the existence of a cavity in which a bowl of such 
dimensions could have been hidden, and yet the 
first demonstration, which presented some simi- 
larity to this one, made me careful, and I watched 
the slightest movements of the Fakir. 

"Since then I have always sought, but in vain, 
an opportunity to see again such examples. Noth- 
ing so far has been presented but the common 
tricks of legerdemain done by Hindoos of other 
castes. 

"The Indian with the bowl was, I am certain, 
a descendant of that race of superior men named 
Celts, Brahmins or Arias. (?) The bonze men- 
tioned, as well as the Hindoo, were about one 
metre and eighty centmetres (6 feet) tall. Both 
were of a dead white complexion, with Grecian 
profile, and eyes very dark and of extraordinary 
fixity. 



170 PSYCHISM. 



"There, my dear Doctor, is what I have per- 
sonally seen, and I take pleasure in telling you 

of it. . . . 

Yours, etc.. 

C. Demole. 
October 31, 1886. 

The cases told by Mr. de Rochas, and a certain 
number of examples taken from the "Lives of 
the Saints," those which have been communicated 
in the preceding letter, may all be produced by 
animic force when exteriorized and guided by 
will. 

This force which, unknown to us, maintains life 
in our organs by modifying assimilable matter, 
when methodically directed by the will of the 
operator who exteriorizes it, as well as when di- 
rected by an external intelligence, is able to cause 
within inert bodies, sudden molecular changes 
which are inexplicable — in the present state of 
what is known as Science — and even to influence 
in a considerable manner the senses of man and 
animals. 

Before writing about mediums a few para- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 171 

graphs which will serve as a transition, in order 
to give the probable condition of the hu- 
man being in after life, we think it may be of in- 
terest to give another example of the extraor- 
dinary things that may be accomplished by men 
who, through firmness of will and concentration 
of thought, in short, who, by means of special 
training, acquire supra normal psychical powers, 
and give to their bodies new and unknown facul- 
ties. 

Six hundred years ago an Arabic learned 
man, Ibn Kaldoun, in his Prolegomena of Uni- 
versal History, wrote on the same subject, which 
now engrosses us (2.) 

And this author, in speaking of the men who 
undergo a special training, "in order to obtain the 
faculty of seeing hidden things and to cause their 
souls to soar in the various worlds of beings," 
wrote : "They are met, especially in India, where 
they bear the name of Djoguis. They have many 
books teaching how these exercises must be taken. 

(2) See French Translation, Vol. XIX., of "No- 
tices et Extraits des Manuscripts de la Bibliotheque 
Nationale." Also de Rochas, Op. cit. 



172 PSYCHISM. 



Most surprising stories are told about these Djo- 
guis." (P. 226.) 

As may be gleaned from these extracts, six 
hundred years ago as well as at present, India 
was considered the cradle of the marvellous. Here 
it is that communities are met with whose mem- 
bers, through a long and painful training, under- 
gone for the purpose of obtaining these much- 
desired psychical powers, and also, we hasten to 
add, of reaching an end, the reality of which we 
will not here discuss, although its ideal may be 
all that is beautiful and lofty, attain the posses- 
sion of a peculiar temperament, a new nature. 
If there be a subject for wonder, it certainly is to 
see what man is capable of doing with himself, 
especially when urged by an indefatigable will 
which allows nothing to interfere or to turn it 
from the goal which it has aimed to reach. In 
Europe and America we have seen several fasters 
remaining for weeks -without taking any nour- 
ishment but pure water. But in India the fasters 
are still more wonderful, and to speak only of 
the djoguis or yoghis, mentioned by Ibn Kaldoun 
in his Prolegomena, several cases are known of 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 173 

apparent death brought on through fasts which 
lasted for weeks and even for months. These 
accounts are according to European Scientists, 
such as the German Physiologist Preyer, Dr. E. 
Sierke, of Vienna; Haeckel, the naturalist, and 
others. 

From the following narration, which we abbre- 
viate from a long and detailed relation written 
by an eye-witness, Dr. Honigberger, and con- 
firmed by Sir Claudius Wade, British Resident 
Minister at Lahore (3) one may obtain an idea 
of the perseverance of the yoghis, and see to what 
fearful maceration they coolly submit their bodies. 

Dr. Honigberger is an Austrian physician, who, 
for several years, has held the position of pri- 
vate physician to Runjet Sing, Rajah of Lahore. 

As for the yoghis, let us say at once that they 
are solitary ascetics who commonly live in the 
forests or on the mountains. They are priests of 
a Brahmanical order. 

Here we give in brief the story, according to 



(3) Also see the "Temps," of Paris, October 31st, 
1885. 



174 PSYCHISM. 



Dr. Honigberger, who supported it through docu- 
ments which are perfectly authentic. 

* * * 

Having meditated at length upon the choice of 
an existence, and judging, probably from the 
retrospection of his- prior lives, that it was time 
he should end his cycle and! absorb himself in 
eternal Nirvana with Brahma, that is to say, with 
Universal Intelligence, Harides, a Brahmin, be- 
came a hermit. He began the practice of the re- 
ligious, physical and intellectual exercises which 
constitute the training towards that which Dr. 
Preyer calls Anabiosis, and which Hindoos term 
Yog Vidya and Bu-Stambha or Vaju-Stambha, 
or the art of producing (by means of ecstasis 
and the elimination of the elementals or Genii, 
intelligent forces of the Earth and waters) a com- 
plete and non-perilous suspension of the vital 
functions. In this state, they say, one may be 
interred quite a long time and return to life, or 
float upon water without fear of being submerged. 

Having built for himself a half -underground 
cell, with but a narrow door, Harides, aided by 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 175 

his iisciples, entered and stretched himself upon 
a soft couch made of woolly skins and carded 
cotton. His servants then secured the door with 
clay and left him. Either sitting in the position 
^f the Pamadzan or lying on his couch, the ascetic 
now sought to concentrate thought through 
reciting prayers upon the Brahmanic beads, or in 
pondering deeply upon the Divinity. At first he 
could remain in his narrow cell but a few 
minutes ; then becoming gradually more and more 
accustomed to the lack of air, he trained himself 
to stay there for hours and days. While in this 
solitary retreat, he began the exercise of the 
Pranayama, or cessation of breathing. He began 
by holding his breath for five minutes, then ten, 
then twenty-one, and so on up to eighty-four min- 
utes. He, moreover, caused a series of twenty- 
four small incisions to be made beneath his 
tongue, one incision each week. These opera- 
tions, together with massage, were done to enable 
him to curl his tongue back against the pharynx, 
in order to close the opening of the glottis during 
Anabiosis. 

During this time the ascetic observed all the 



176 PSYCHISM. 



rules of yoghism, he ate vegetables only and re- 
frained absolutely from any carnal intercourse. 

At last, when he was ready to undergo the final 
trial, which we will soon relate, he submitted 
himself to a rehearsal of it several times before 
presenting himself at the Court of Lahore. 

Why did he present himself before Rajah Run- 
jet Sing? We presume that he went, as did all 
of the old prophets of Israel, to reproach the 
Rajah for his sins (kings, alas, commit sins, and 
are as human as the rest of mankind), to 
upbraid him for dissoluteness of his Court 
and to preach to all penance and amend- 
ment. To give a proof of his divine mission, he 
offered to remain under ground in a coffin for 
weeks or months with assurance of returning to 
life! 

His proposition was accepted. 

Harides the Yoghi made his last preparations. 
He purified his body externally by ablutions, and 
internally by fasting and taking the juices of 
sacred plants. He cleaned his stomach, not with 
a rubber tube as in modern lavage, but by means 
of long bands of fine linen, which he partly swal- 
lowed and withdrew afterwards. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 177 

When the appointed day was at hand, an enor- 
mous crowd assembled. Harides, surrounded by 
his disciples and accompanied by the Rajah and 
his Court, gravely advanced to the place of trial. 
After a linen shroud had been spread upon the 
ground, he placed himself in the middle, turned 
his face to the East, and then sat down with 
legs crossed in the pamadzan attitude of Brahma 
sitting on the lotus. He appeared to meditate 
for some moments, then fixed his gaze towards 
the end of his nose after having curled his 
tongue back into his pharnyx. Soon his eyes 
closed, his limbs became stiff, and catalepsy, then 
lethargy, or rather Thanatoida (a new word 
which we propose) (4) that is to say, a state simi- 
lar to death, took place. 

The disciples of the solitary saint then hastened 
to close his lips and to plug his ears and nostrils 

(4) From 6araro5 (death) and eidos (form). 
The word lethargy does not, as is erroneously ac- 
cepted, mean apparent death, but deep, pathological 
sleep. Etymology: Xr/^t}, forgetfulness, and apyia, 
laziness, numbness. Anabiosis seems an improper 
term, in that it signifies privation of life, which in 
the foregoing instance is not applicable. 



178 PSYCHISM. 



with pledgets of linen smeared with wax. They 
united the four corners of the shroud above his 
head and knotted them together. The seal of 
the Rajah was placed upon the knots and the 
body was enclosed in a wooden box, four feet by 
three, securely nailed and also set with the royal 
seal. 

A cemented grave that had been prepared 
three feet under the surface of the ground, with 
dimensions exact for admitting the box, received 
the yoghi's body. The door was closed, sealed 
and completely stopped up with clay. Notwith- 
standing these precautions, sentries were ordered 
to watch the grave night and day, although it 
was surrounded by thousands of Hindoos who 
had piously come, as to a pilgrimage, to witness 
the burial of the saint. 

At the end of six weeks, the time that had 
been agreed upon for the exhumation, a still 
greater concourse assembled upon the spot. The 
Rajah ordered the clay that walled up the door 
to be removed and saw that his seal was intact. 

The door was then opened, the box with its 
contents taken out, and after ascertaining that 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 179 

the seals upon it were also unbroken, the body 
was lifted from its narrow resting place. 

Dr. Honigberger remarked that the shroud was 
covered with mildew, which he explained was 
caused through the dampness of the sepulchre. 
The ascetic's body, lifted out of the box by the 
disciples and still folded within the shroud, was 
placed against the cover of the box. Then, be- 
fore it was uncovered, warm water was poured 
upon the head. Finally, after the seals had been 
identified and removed, the body was taken out 
of the winding sheet which covered it. 

Then Dr. Honigberger examined him carefully. 
He was in the same attitude as upon the burial 
day, except that the head was resting upon one 
shoulder. The skin was wrinkled ; the limbs were 
stiff. The whole body was cold, excepting the 
head, upon which warm water had been poured. 
The pulse could not be perceived over the radials, 
any more than it could be felt at the brachials and 
temporals. Upon auscultation the heart gave no 
sign of life, and the heavy eyelids, on being lifted, 
showed eyes set as in death. 

The disciples and servants washed the body 



180 PSYCHISM. 



and rubbed the limbs. One of them applied on 
the yoghi's cranium a warm layer of paste made 
of rye flour, which he renewed several times, 
while another disciple removed the plugs from 
the ears and nostrils and opened the mouth by 
means of a knife. Harides, like unto a waxen 
statue, still evinced no sign of revival. 

After opening the yoghi's mouth, the disciple 
caught his tongue and pulled it forward to a nor- 
mal position, and there held it, as it had a ten- 
dency to fall back over the larynx. The eyelids 
were rubbed with ointment, and a last application 
of the warm paste was applied to his head. At 
this moment the ascetic's body was shaken by a 
tremor, his nostrils became dilated and a deep 
inspiration followed; his pulse beat slowly and 
his limbs gave signs of circulation. A little 
melted butter was poured on his tongue, and, 
after a most painful scene, whose issue appeared 
to be doubtful, the lids raised and "the eyes sud- 
denly resumed their brightness." 

The resurrection of the yoghi was accom- 
plished, and when he saw the Rajah, he simply 
said : "Do you believe me now ?" 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 181 

Half an hour had been spent in reviving him, 
and "after the same lapse of time, he was found 
sitting at the Rajah's table, still weak, but clothed 
in royal robe and decorated with a necklace of 
pearls and golden bracelets," 

Sometime afterwards, having probably been 
challenged by the Rajah, the Yoghi again com- 
mitted himself to the grave. On this occasion it 
was six feet underground. The tomb was walled 
up, the earth beaten over it, some loam was 
placed over the whole and barley sown upon it. 
Still, according to the same eye-witnesses, Ha- 
rides was this time left for four months in his 
grave. At the end of the prescribed period he 
was taken from it and revived as before. 

These facts are so far beyond all that physiol- 
ogy teaches us in regard to the habitual conditions 
of human life, that one cannot help think- 
ing at the very least: "I should like to see it." 
"But," as says the writer from whom we have 
borrowed this narration, "it would be unsafe to 
contest these facts, simply because we are un- 
able to explain them." We trust that the ex- 



182 PSYCHISM. 



planation will not remain long beyond the pale of 
science. 

However this may be, before refusing a priori 
to accept stories like the preceding, it is well to 
remember that hundreds of travellers agree upon 
facts of this nature which they have observed in 
India. And, that Brahmanic religion, mystical in 
the highest degree, induces men towards the self- 
denial, maceration and auto-torture. And finally, 
that men like the Brahmins of India, who have 
studied the psychological side of human biology 
for so many centuries, have more knowledge on 
these matters than we, who are only just begin- 
ning to have them revealed to us. 

It were wiser to unite modern Science, exact 
and positive as it is, to the old traditions which 
appear to have been retained by the Hindoo "sci- 
entists," whose fathers have doubtless inspired 
Egyptians and Greeks, as well as all the other 
founders of the great religions of the world which 
now divide mankind. 

* * * 

It should be noted that no matter what the 
religion, the so-called miracles are wrought every- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 183 

where by those invested with holy attributes. 

But each sect believes its own miracles to be 
the only ones of divine origin, and any act of an 
oppposing creed, deviating from the known laws 
of nature, beyond comprehension, supernatural, 
is regarded as emanating from and under direct 
supervision of the devil. 

We, however, have no need to concern our- 
selves with these opinions, still less discuss them ; 
according to the device attributed to the Mahara- 
jahs of Benares : 

"There is no Religion higher than 
Truth/' 

And as Science is but the sum total of the ways 
and means leading to the knowledge of truth, its 
faithful ones, to avoid the distraction of obscure 
and degenerate symbols, are bound to establish 
their privileged worship outside of all churches, 
the starry vault of heaven being the only temple 
worthy of the exalted idea entertained of Divinity. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Summaey: Supra-ordinary power and new facul- 
ties which man may acquire. — The dangers of train- 
ing which must be undergone for that purpose. — A re- 
cent and actual example of these dangers; a whole 
association of mysticists giving themselves up to 
most immoral procedures. — The danger presented by 
Spiritualistic seances and in general psychical re- 
searches undertaken without method. — Inferior intel- 
ligences seize upon the animic force of mediums. — 
Great danger in seances held in the dark. — Pacts up- 
holding this statement. — One experimenter well nigh 
mortally wounded, another severely hurt. — Other 
facts personally observed by the author. — Advice upon 
the matter. 

Hence, man may acquire a power of exterior- 
ization and abmaterialization both of spirit and 
animic force, which will allow him to produce 
phenomena apparently in contradiction with the 
natural laws actually known to modern Sci- 
ence. We have read many very interesting" rela- 
tions of men endowed with these faculties, who 
live as fraternities, phalansteries in the solitudes 
of Thibet or in the mountains of Himalaya. We 
do not know whether the existence of these adepts 
among the Brahmins of higher degree, or that of 



186 PSYCHISM. 



the Mahatmas (as some term them) is real. We 
cannot deny, however, the possibility of this ex- 
istence, such a denial is contrary to scientific prin- 
ciples; moreover, it is opposed by the things 
which we have seen (5.) 

Does this mean that we advocate the practice 
of Yoghism and its macerations as a means of 
investigation? Not in the least. But positive 
Science, with its experimental processes, its inr- 
ductive and deductive methods, seizes possessions 
wherever it finds them. So, we think that no 
stigma attaches itself to the investigator who 
studies the phenomena determined by the beings 
called yoghis, fakirs, mediums, etc., who have 
voluntarily submitted their bodies and minds to 
a sometimes cruel and severe training for a pur- 
pose, the value and legitimacy of which it is not 



(5) We have no doubt but that the word "Ma- 
hatma" will remind many a reader of the grandeur 
et decadence of a certain "occult science" society. 
Apropos of this we take the liberty of advising those 
who might have the idea of organizing a similar as- 
sociation never to mention their Great Spirits, in- 
spirators and guides unless they can produce them on 
demand. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 187 

our intention or within our province to discuss. 
On the contrary, it seems as wrong to neglect the 
study of psychic anomalies as it would be to ig- 
nore physical disorders or teratological malforma- 
tions. 

We are desirous that our readers should know 
that, far from encouraging any one to follow the 
footsteps of the yoghis, or fakirs, we have already 
called attention (see our work on Spiritism) to 
the dangers incurred through psychical re- 
searches. We will add, with regard to the train- 
ing required for developing the superior facul- 
ties of abmaterialization, that it frequently leads 
to dementia or perversion of sentiment, while it 
may foster the development of passions commonly 
dependent on an aberration of the genesical sense. 
Nature once restrained, some day resumes its 
rights with usury if the restriction happens to fail. 
It is thus, according to Pascal's words (6), that 
"by dint of trying to imitate angels we end in 
imitating beasts." 

We are acquainted with a number of terrible 

(6) Pensees. Chapter X. 



188 PSYCHISM. 



examples of the perversion just mentioned. We 
will quote one : A talented English writer wished 
at a certain period of his life to acquire supra- 
ordinary faculties. He abandoned the lofty posi- 
tion occupied in the political and literary field of 
Great Britain, and began his search for and study 
of the occult. He undertook a life of the greatest 
hardship imaginable, and wrote works which 
were the admiration of mysticists and students 
of "occultism." In the United States he joined a 
mystico-religious brotherhood which he left when 
the leader of this little church was possessed with 
the idea of personating God himself. In America, 
as is well known, these varieties of mania and 
imposture are not infrequent, and a certain 
amount of success encourages their production. 

(7-) 
Through proselytism, helped by an unctuous, 

persuasive power of eloquence, the yoghi candi- 
date began recruiting for a religion which taught 
the sacrifice of self and the union of souls and 
spirits in a seraphic marriage. At this time he 

(7) New York Herald, May 12th, 1889. See an 
article entitled "A Remarkable Impostor." 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 189 

had put aside all fasting, meditation, isolation 
(vae soli!) and the macerations of the flesh, in 
order to adopt a relatively fastuous mode of life. 
In the East he had succeeded in founding a com- 
munity wherein were living a number of young 
English and American girls and women of good 
society. This community had in Europe, even in 
Paris and America, adherents of both sexes. 

Behind the piety and refined mysticism of the 
adepts were hidden the foulest, most obscene prac- 
tices raised to the eminence of a principle and of a 
cult ad majorem Dei gloriam. 

The false prophet once dead, his disciples, after 
taking certain precautions, were preparing, by 
means of occult initiations, to spread the doctrines 
which had been secretly imparted to them. A 
party of young people of both sexes, some mar- 
ried, were about to start for the East, when a 
young neophyte to the new onanic Priapus had 
her eyes suddenly opened ; the spell of suggestion 
was broken. She worked with all the might 
of her being to mend the harm that had been 
done and to prevent its further development. 
Thanks to her the community was quickly broken 
up. 



190 PSYCHISM. 



We are convinced that the man who was the 
cause of wrecking so many young- minds, cor- 
rupted and fanaticized by his apologetic teach- 
ings of vice, was naught but an unconscious 
maniac. If we were asked, as a medical jurist, 
to pass an opinion on the matter of his respon- 
sibility, we would hesitate, and before all else, 
make earnest consideration of his attenuated men- 
tality, a derangement brought on through the oc- 
cult practices in which he had formerly indulged. 
If we may use the words of the Kabbalists, he 
was not able to prevail against the "Guardian of 
the threshold, and the sphinx devoured him." 

This is an example (whose truth we vouch for) 
(8) of the dangers run by those who blindly 
throw themselves in the search of the mysterious 
Unknown, without steering by the light of posi- 
tive philosophy, and especially without having be- 
come thoroughly imbued with the rigorous prin- 
ciples of the scientific method. 

3JC ^C 3JC 

We have just spoken of the dangers that may 

(8) We have in our possession irrefutable docu- 
ments, and could cite well-known names, were we 
compelled to do so. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 191 

be incurred through the employment of practices 
which are meant to develop "occult powers ;" 
there still remains to mention the dangerous ac- 
cidents which might befall those who, without 
method, aided by mediums, give themselves up to 
the pursuit of psychic researches. 

We have elsewhere alluded to the inconvenience 
resulting from the study of phenomenal psychism, 
especially for those whose nervous system is none 
too strong. 

In a general way, we scarcely deem it safe to 
give one's self up assiduously to the practice of 
"evocations ;" one may not always receive whom 
one wishes, and when the "medium," having be- 
come passive, allows his animic energy (force, 
vital fluid, perispirit of the spiritists) to escape, 
any evil intelligence becoming attracted by cer- 
tain magnetic influences of an inferior order, any 
larva, as the occultists term it, may take pos- 
session of it and cause irreparable damage. 

It is chiefly during seances, taking place in the 
dark, that such events occur. 

We will mention in connection with this, two 
particularly interesting cases. The first one took 



192 PSYCHISM. 



place some ten years ago in England. Three 
gentlemen, desirous of finding out whether cer- 
tain spiritualistic allegations were true, locked 
themselves up one evening without a light, in 
one of the rooms of an uninhabited house, having 
agreed previously through honor and oath to be 
perfectly serious and to act in good faith. 

The room purposely was absolutely bare, save 
three chairs and a table. Around the latter they 
took their seats. 

It was agreed that as soon as anything unusual 
occurred the first one in readiness was to> light 
a wax taper with which they were provided. 
They had remained motionless and quiet for 
some time, mindful of the least noise, or the 
slightest movement which might take place at 
the table upon which their joined hands were 
retting. No sound could be heard ; the darkness 
was appalling ; suddenly a strident cry of distress 
burst upon the silence of the night. Immediately 
after a fearful noise was heard and a hail of 
projectiles fell upon the floor, table and ob- 
servers. 

Filled with terror, one of those present lighted 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 193 

a taper, as had been agreed upon, and as soon 
as the darkness had given place to light, two 
of them only stood in the presence of each other, 
and saw that their companion was missing and 
his chair upset at the end of the room. 

As soon as they had recovered from their as- 
tonishment, they found their missing friend 
under the table, inanimate, with his face and head 
covered with blood. 

What had taken place? 

It was seen that the marble mantel piece, broken 
in pieces, had been torn from the wall and cast at 
the unfortunate man's head. 

The victim of this accident remained for nearly 
ten days in an unconscious state, wavering be- 
tween life and death, and but slowly recovered 
from the terrible cerebral shock which he had 
sustained. 

This narrative was told by one worthy of the 
most implicit faith, who heard it direct from one 
of the actors in this drama. 

* * * 

The second case of accident occurring during 
a dark seance happened to Mr. P., one of the 



194 PSYCHISM. 



most distinguished members of the Parisian press, 
who communicated it to us. 

This gentleman had been invited to a private 
house at Passy, to be present at a spiritual seance, 
in which the animic force was furnished by Mr. 
Sh., a well-known American medium. 

At a given moment, the medium sat at the 
piano; several string instruments, among them a 
guitar, had been placed upon a table beyond his 
reach. The onlookers formed a circle by joining 
hands, and the lights were extinguished. The 
medium played a tune on the piano, and soon 
after the other instruments were heard to take up 
the strain, while they floated above the heads of 
those present, near the ceiling, moving about 
and being heard in various parts of the room. 

Suddenly Mr. P. felt that he had been struck 
upon the head and was half-stunned. On putting 
his hand to his forehead, he cried that he was 
hurt and bleeding. At the same time the guitar 
fell upon his knees. As soon as the lamps were 
lighted, it was seen that hi: face and hands were 
covered with blood ; the guitar had struck him 
with one of its sharp corners in the middle of 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 195 

the forehead, and Mr. P. will carry for the re- 
mainder of his life the scar resulting from this 
cut. 

Mr. P. is still interested in occult things, but 
does not care to be invited to any more seances 

held in the dark. 

* * * 

In the course of our numerous experiments, 
especially the first ones, several more or less dis- 
agreeable adventures occurred, one of which came 
near ending tragically. Not that we have ever 
made any experiments in the dark, for this is a 
manner of experimenting to which we have al- 
ways objected. We would add that all of our un- 
pleasant occurrences in this line of work have 
taken place in full light. 

One day, after making a few ironical observa- 
tions upon the opinions formulated by an ill-bred 
"spirit," who manifested itself by rappings, the 
author thought for a moment that his knee-cap 
had been broken from a violent blow received 
from the edge of a table which had been rudely 
overturned towards him. When interrogated as 



196 PSYCHISM. 



co whether the injury done had been intentional, 
the larva answered affirmatively. 

But it is of a circumstance which we will never 
forget, though we live a thousand years, that 
we wish especially to speak ; a circumstance which 
fully demonstrated the dangers to which one 
is exposed in making certain psychical researches 
and which forcibly suggested the necessity of 
taking the greatest precautions while pursuing 
them. We confess that our studies in this branch 
were followed with the customary fearlessness 
attributed to youth. We regarded it simply as an 
ordinary physiological investigation, and treated 
it like any other branch of Science. But since 
then, we have acquired the knowledge which 
comes with experience and learned the wisdom 
oif employing certain forms, without which the 
experimenter subjects himself to serious danger. 

In the following the author relates a circum- 
stance in which he played an important role. 

During the last months of the year 1886, we 
made regularly, chiefly in the evening, experi- 
ments upon the animic force. Two seances, 
which we are about to relate, were especially full 






ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 197 

of incident. These seances were held in a lab- 
oratory in one of the ancient buildings of the 
"College Rollin," which had been temporarily 
transformed into a practical amphitheatre of dis- 
section, for the students of the School of Medicine 
of Paris. 

The halls we occupied, which served as labora- 
tory, were near the dissecting rooms in which, 
at the time, were numerous "subjects." In one 
of the closets of our laboratory we had had some 
time before, a body, which had served for the 
study of a certain surgical operation. Those 
who are familiar with the question of which we 
are speaking, will understand the importance of 
these details. 

The medium, Mr. S., who assisted in our re- 
searches, was an American. His animic force 
was emitted in sufficient quantity to produce 
"materialization" and the transportation of ob- 
jects at a distance, without contact. 

One Saturday evening in December, 1886, the 
medium, with Dr. de B., accompanied us to the 
laboratory of Rue Lhomond. 

Two friends, Dr. A. and Mr. L., chief editor 



198 PSYCHISM. 



of a political and literary review, with whom we 
Lad made an appointment, had already arrived. 
Our laboratory assistant had prepared everything 
necessary for the experiment, which included 
plaster of Paris, on which we designed to* obtain 
impressions. 

The plaster, after being mixed with water, was 
placed in a large vessel under the table around 
which all of us, excepting the assistant, sat. The 
vessel was covered with a large bell made of wire 
net, upon which we placed our feet. The room 
was perfectly lighted with two gas lamps, one of 
which was situated directly over us. 

On that occasion we obtained but little result, 
no imprints, save a few insignificant tracings on 
the plaster, as if a finger had lightly touched it. 
Several of us had on our clothes, spots of this 
substance which we had not before noticed. The 
medium complained of feeling uneasy. He felt, 
he said, bad influences about him and was strained 
to the utmost to resist being entranced. 

After obtaining a certain number of phenom- 
ena, which would be of no interest to report, we 
ceased our experiments and left, the medium be- 
ing so faint as to require our support. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 199 

On our way from Rue Lhomond to Rue 
Claude-Bernard, where we were going, to take a 
carriage, we were suddenly assailed by a volley 
of strokes, which could be heard and were indeed 
most palpable (as we have every reason to re- 
member), and which were especially directed to~ 
ward the medium, who, after this encounter, was 
fairly overcome with fright. At last a carriage 
was found, and the medium, with Dr. de B., en- 
tered. Hardly were they shut in and started, 
before an irregular beating was heard on the 
roof of the carriage. These strokes continued, 
says Dr. de B., until they reached the Champs 
Elysees, where S., the medium, lived. 

An appointment had been made for the follow- 
ing Saturday, and on that day we all met at the 
place of our last engagement. As on the former 
occasion, Mr. L., and Drs. de B. and A., who 
practice in Paris, joined us, together with the 
laboratory assistant. 

From the outstart, our undertakings did not 
run smoothly ; hardly had we entered the "Ecole 
Pratique," when we heard, in passing one of the 



200 PSYCHISM. 



anatomical amphitheatres, a hissing sound, fol- 
lowed by a violent thud as of some object thrown 
against a neighboring wooden partition. This 
noise, we ascertained, was occasioned by a small, 
empty jar, of the kind used for preserving anat- 
omical specimens ; it had hit the wall, rebounded 
on one of our party and fallen to the ground 
without breaking. From whence came this mis- 
sile? The evening was not yet advanced, and 
without the covering of night no one could have 
hidden in this gallery. 

We next entered a vestibule which opened 
upon a staircase leading to the laboratory on the 
second floor; the gas on the stairway had not yet 
been lighted and the place was rather dark. 
Fearing another unpleasant encounter, we called 
to the assistant to make light for us. In the 
meantime we began mounting the stairs. Hardly 
had we reached the first flight (the medium be- 
ing in advance), before another hissing was 
heard, followed by the breaking of glass, which 
had been thrown with violence on the stairs 
which we were climbing. After the gas had been 
lighted, we found a quantity of glass fragments 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 201 

which evidently had come from a jar similar to 
the one seen below. There was no one on the 
stairway and by what force the jar was launched 
there, remained a mystery to all. 

When once we reached the laboratory, which 
was well lighted, we had but a recurrence of the 
events which took place in the preceding experi- 
ment, and the medium became more and more 
nervous. 

While we stood around the table (a square, 
perfectly plain table, which had been purposely 
constructed), after having prepared the plaster, 
we said, half jokingly, in French, in order not to 
be understood by our medium, who spoke English 
only, that we would not be surprised if the ras- 
cally spirit of one of the many bodies dissected 
there, was not exerting an influence to prevent 
us from conducting our experiments successfully. 
The words had barely been given utterance, be- 
fore the medium was taken with a convulsive ag- 
itation which strained his whole frame, and he 
then became "entranced." That which followed 
was positively frightful ; he arose, and took a few 
irregular steps in the room, his eyes fairly bulg- 



202 PSYCHISM. 



ing from his head in the tensity of their awful 
stare. Everyone, feeling that something unusual 
was about to happen, arose and remained watch- 
ful. S. turned and, seizing one of the heavy 
oaken stools upon which we had been seated, 
swung it about his head in a manner most terrible 
and threatening. All succeeded in escaping but 
the author, who, seated against the wall, remained 
alone to face this being of colossal build, who 
seemed to have malicious designs on him. They 
were separated only by the square table before 
which we had been quietly sitting but a few mo- 
ments before. The medium's countenance at this 
time was fearful to look on; he directed his left 
arm toward the author, with forefinger out- 
stretched ominously, and with the right arm he 
swung the heavy stool about his head. 

This scene, in the old college hall, which for 
the nonce had been converted into a laboratory 
for experimental psychology, was really a weird 
sight ; but it was not this which then claimed our 
attention. Our terrified friends stood aside, no 
one uttering a word; the medium alone made a 
sort of guttural rattle. As the author was un- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 203 

able to escape from the place where standing, 
being cornered, as it were, between the wall and 
table on one side and a stationary cupboard and 
stove on the other, he could watch every gesture 
of this man who seemed to have such malignant 
intent against him, which he gave every evidence 
of satisfying. He came nearer, well within reach 
of us, and then aimed a terrible blow at our head 
with the heavy wooden stool. 

We had maintained great presence of mind, 
and, as may well be imagined, watched him in- 
tently. When we saw the object of his attitude, 
we with dexterity seized the table which was be- 
fore us and, shifting it rapidly, held it before our 
adversary, thus protecting ourself as with a 
shield. The stool struck the table like a catapult, 
the blow making us retreat against the wall ; then 
a splintering was heard and the table was split 
in two. We continued to protect ourself behind 
it and pushed it on towards S., who eventually 
dropped his weapon and fell backwards on a 
chair in a swoon. We rushed to support him, but 
our attentions were useless, as he soon recovered 
consciousness, though he remembered nothing of 



204 PSYCHISM. 



what had transpired. In order not to frighten 
him we hid our emotion and seated ourselves 
around the table as before. 

This time we purposely placed him next to 
the wall. The precaution did not prove useless, 
for he was again taken with a trance no less ter- 
rible than the first. He arose, after undergoing 
a convulsive agitation, then sat down again, with 
face contracted in a frightful rictus. His eyes 
appeared to bulge from their sockets. He again 
arose, we did the same ; we then changed our po- 
sition and placed ourself between him and the 
stove, but, no sooner did he note the change, than 
he pushed the table and, seizing a chair, advanced 
upon us. Alive to the danger, we raised the 
stool, which he had previously thrown and used 
it, not as a weapon, but merely to ward off blows 
which he might launch at us. 

There was a moment of anxiety for the on- 
lookers, when we (the medium and ourself) faced 
one another with our strange weapons in this 
well-nigh fantastical combat. 

He advanced on us, still swinging the chair, 
and we were prepared to parry with our stool, 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 205 

when suddenly, we know not by what force we 
were prompted to try an experiment, said to be 
infallible in such occurrences, which had been 
taught us by a man familiar with these matters. 
We threw aside the stool which we held, and ad- 
vanced both hands towards this unfortunate "en- 
tranced" one, strongly "willing" that he should 
become immobilized. We projected, as it were, 
our will against him, adding to this cerebral ef- 
fort an energetical gesture. The effect was in- 
stantaneous and we were the first to be surprised 
at the happy result; instead of hurling the chair 
at us, it was thrown backwards, and, although 
quite a strong one, was broken past the possibility 
of repair, (i) S. became as if struck by lightning, 
his body was shaken with a convulsive tremor, 
brusquely carried three or four yards distant from 
where he had stood and dropped on the floor 
against the wall. All his limbs were contorted, 
his joints cracked and finally he shrivelled and 
curled up like a ball. 

(1) The chair, we must say, was repulsed rather 
than thrown, and did not leave the hand of the me- 
dium, who really crushed it under the pressure of his 
hand as though it were a toy. 



206 PSYCHISM. 



A few magnetic passes helped him to regain 
consciousness. As soon as he recovered we left 
this place, so badly adapted for psychological re- 
search, and never returned to it for that purpose. 

* * * 

As we have just learned, experimental psychi- 
cal research entails certain risks on the part of 
those who give themselves up to it, and should, on 
no condition, be indulged in for mere pastime. 

Our opinion on the matter can be advanced in 
a few lines: 

If unable to study experimental psychology 
seriously, methodically and in a manner profitable 
to science and mankind in general, it were better, 
after having seen that which brought conviction 
to the mind, to refrain from active interest and 
accept the word of those capacitated to confront 
the dangers incurred in following investigation of 
this kind and who are competent to conduct their 
researches successfully and beneficially. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Summary. — Why it is that after his first re- 
searches the author advanced no theory and held to 
the ground of facts. — A letter from an editor of the 
"Journal des Debats." — Materializations. — Mouldings 
and photographs of animic forms. — Why Scientists, as 
a rule, wish to say nothing about these phenomena. — 
Three interviews with Prof. Vulpian, Charcot and Pas- 
teur. — The proof established that man possesses an in- 
telligence that survives the body. — Mechanism of 
death. — It has two periods: 1. The stage of intellectual 
secession. 2. The stage of animic death. — The cells of 
the body are individuals living by and in us, just as 
we live by and in the Macrocosm. — The living cell 
contains animic energy, that is to say, Energy in 
evolution toward intelligence; it assimilates, disas- 
similates, and remembers. — Pathological immunity is 
a phenomenon of cellular memory. — An unpublished 
case of so-called veridic hallucination. — The last 
words of dying Hermes. 

In a preceding work we told at length, before 
speaking of our own, of the experiments made 
by most distinguished scientists (W. Crookes, 
Zoellner, etc.). We did not, for several reasons, 
wish at that time to advance our theories on psy- 
chic phenomena. In the first place, though per- 
fectly convinced as to the authenticity of these 
phenomena, we were not yet satisfied as to their 



208 PSYCHISM. 



cause. We thought to affirm, however, that at 
least a certain number of those which we had ob- 
served were produced by an intelligent determina- 
tor, seemingly independent. Moreover, by re- 
maining upon the ground of facts, without con- 
senting to adopt or sustain any theory, we held 
an impregnable position and could not be ac- 
cused of having a preconceived opinion on the 
subject. The result of this candid attitude has 
fully recompensed us; as we remarked before, the 
number of letters received from ex-pupils of the 
Ecole Polytechnique, from the High Normal 
School, from professors, agreges of Sciences, 
physicians, engineers in France and abroad have 
encouraged us in no small degree to continue our 
researches. 

A number of scientists and otherwise learned 
men have witnessed our experiments, and written 
us letters which we, being authorized, might pub- 
lish. Could those who are unwilling to believe 
be convinced in any better way than through the 
testimony of scientists who knowingly have risked 
their professional reputation in publishing the re- 
sults of their experiments ? 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 209 

Among the experimental facts which we pub- 
lished in our earlier work we insisted especially 
on the phenomenon of independent writing. We 
will here reproduce a letter which was sent us 
after a seance in our house, witnessed by Mr. 
Patinot, director of the Journal des Debats, and 
two of his collaborateurs, Andre Hallays and the 
lamented Harry Alis, author of the letter referred 
to. Before producing it, we will explain the 
mechanism of direct writing, according to the 
theory which our researches permit us to ad- 
vance. 

The medium, being in an almost complete state 
of passiveness, though awake, his animic force, 
instead of remaining limited to his organs, floats 
without. The intelligences which attach them- 
selves to his person, being unable to manifest 
themselves without a supplement of animic force, 
can take up that which is emitted by the medium 
and utilize it in giving evidence of their exist- 
ence and presence in various ways, viz. : In as- 
suming some form, producing sounds or voices, 
or in causing objects to move, as in this par- 
ticular case a pencil of three or four millimetres 



210 PSYCHISM. 



long, which is rubbed against the surface of a 
slate. They may also give this force, when plen- 
tiful, all the appearance of living (we will speak of 
this later) or inorganic matter. This, perhaps, will 
some day serve to prove that matter proceeds 
from energy, for leaving apart those cases in 
which there is a transporting of objects, some 
of these materializations remain. 

Now we give the letter before referred to. 

JOURNAL DES DEBATS, 

Politique et Litteraire 

Rue des Pretres St. Germain FAuxerpois, 17. 

Paris, November 21st, 1886. 

Paul Gibier, Esq., M. D., Paris. 
Dear Doctor : — 

I witnessed yesterday evening with Messrs. 
Patinot, Andre Hallays and another gentleman, 
the experiments of Mr. Slade, under conditions 
which dispel any hypothesis of trickery. 

While I kept my eyes fixed upon the medium's 
feet, I heard and felt two knocks against a foot 
of my chair. 

Mr. Slade renewed successfully the experiment 
of transporting slates under the table. Messrs. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 211 

Patinot, Hallays and the fourth spectator (i) 
felt a cool breeze, and the slate was gently brought 
into their hands. 

Mr. Slade repeated in a variety of ways the 
experiment of writing between slates. We are 
convinced that the phenomenon was real. At 
one time, Mr. Slade held the slate under the table, 
but from five to six centimetres below it, and we 
could distinctly hear the movement of the pencil 
over the slate. A word from one of the spectators 
caused the medium to turn his head, and with 
an involuntary nervous jerk he brought the slate 
from under the table and held it under my eyes ; 
where, for a period, which I value at five or six 
seconds, / saw the pencil running alone and rap- 
idly over the slate tracing characters, about three 
or four letters. Following shortly, three knocks 
were heard, and Mr. Slade, producing the slate, 
showed us the written words. 

Very cordially yours, and once more, 
accept all our thanks, 

Harry Alis. 

(1) The experiment was made at the author's 
house. The "fourth observer," who desired to remain 
incognito, was a man of distinguished scientific abil- 
ity. 



212 PSYCHISM. 



This essay is not intended to report the results 
of an experimental work, in that it is not specially 
devoted to the study of experiments, but it is, 
nevertheless, the consequence of untiring investi- 
gations in that direction. These experiments per- 
mit us to be more daring than of yore, and it is 
through them that we can now assure psycholo^ 
gists, if they but experiment with endowed and 
honest mediums, that they will find the proof of 
a continuance of the human consciousness in the 
period which comes after the last function — 
death. For how long does this consciousness live 
on; what are the conditions under which its life, 
its existence, continue to manifest themselves? 
These are questions which, in view of the pres- 
ent state of scientific ideas, are very difficult — 
we do not dare to say to solve, but — to approach. 
However, we believe that ere long the subject will 
be as freely, ably and popularly discussed as is 
any other physiological matter. In fact, we are 
happy to be able to inform the reader that some 
physiologists, occupying positions of distinction 
in France, as well as abroad, are to-day well versed 
in this matter. It would be doing them an injus- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 213 

tice to suppose that they are "hiding their light 
under a bushel," when, in the shadow of their 
official chairs, so many young physiological ap- 
prentices are seeking to slake an unquenchable 
thirst for knowledge. 

Therefore, we will say, without fear of ad- 
vancing too much, that, from recent investigations, 
we may soon expect to obtain very instructive 
data, notwithstanding the contradictions noted in 
the writings and discourses of representatives of 
the unseen world, of the usually invisible beings 
which manifest themselves to us. 

We will say no more, the time has not yet come. 
But remember this : the invisible world is but a re- 
flection of the world that we fancy we know. 

* # * 

Among the many learned and distinguished ac- 
quaintances that we owe to the publication of our 
first book, we must mention Mr. Arthur Engel, 
an ex-pupil of the School of Athens, who fur- 
nished us some very interesting accounts of his 
experience with Eglington. We had been invited 
to go to London to see this medium, but at that 



214 PSYCHISM. 



time it was impossible for us to leave Paris, and 
Mr. Engel volunteered to attend the last seances, 
we think, given by Eglington. 

The scientific method with which these records 
were taken, filled all of our requirements. We do 
not wish, however, to reproduce them. We will 
even refrain from mentioning other experiments 
of the kind, although we have in our possession a 
number of the most interesting and curious docu- 
ments, viz. : So-called spiritualistic photographs 
obtained through six mediums by different ex- 
perimenters (civil engineers, physicians and 
chemists), relations of seances with extrarodinary 
"apports" of objects, materializations, etc., and 
notably, a voluminous manuscript written by Col. 
N., a former pupil of the Ecole Poly technique, 
wherein he related the various experiments made 
in the years (1875-76-77). In the seances of 
Colonel N., which were witnessed by notable 
members of the army, the principal mediumistic 
light was his adopted daughter. For the benefit 
of those initiated in these studies, we will quote 
one experiment which especially claimed our in- 
terest, namely : The perfect materialization of a 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 215 

small dog which had belonged to the Colonel, 
and had died some months before. As we have 
before mentioned, it is our intention to write a 
separate work on these matters. 



Since we have again spoken of materializations, 
we will add, that in materialization seances (let 
us note this) any one may see a dead member of 
his family and hold converse with him. One may 
press the hand of a materialized spirit, fold it 
within one's arms and have the illusion that it is 
a return of the living from the dead. This being 
will speak of your private life and of things 
known to you only. The voice may be un- 
changed. This apparition has a heart which beats 
and lungs through which air is inhaled and ex- 
haled, as may be ascertained by auscultation. ( See 
the experiments of W. Crookes, F. R. S.) It 
may be photographed and imprints, or rather the 
hollow mould, of hands and even heads (many 
examples of this kind exist) may be secured 
through liquid hot paraffine, rapidly cooled before 
the materialization vanishes. These moulds are 
without a trace of a solution of continuity, or of 



216 PSYCHISM. 



threads, and the professional moulders to whom 
they may be shown are unable to understand by 
what process they were obtained, unless they are 
told of it. 

All the objects, photographs and mouldings re- 
main to us as unalterable and irrefutable proofs 
of something which, though evanescent, still ex- 
isted, and that we have not been the victims of an 
hallucination. 

Let us add that these materializations are pro- 
duced by intelligences which act through the force 
or animic energy drawn from the medium, (i.) 

(1) Among the many cases showing survival of 
the consciousness, which have been reported in the 
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we 
will quote the following. It is a summary of the re- 
port recently given by Dr. Richard Hodgson, Secre- 
tary of the Society. The observation was made 
through Mrs. Piper, a well-known medium of Boston. 
For the details of the means by which the communi- 
cation was obtained, we refer the reader to the Pro- 
ceedings of the above mentioned society. (Part 
XXIII., Vol. XIII.) 

Among the persons of Dr. Hodgson's acquaintance 
who attended with him Mrs. Piper's seances was Mr. 
George Pelham (pseudonyme), a young literary man 
interested in psychical research, but decidedly skep- 
tical with regard to the reality of the manifestation 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 217 



To the question, how is it that these things are 
not better known and better studied, we will re- 
ply : Scientists have studied and known them for 
a long time, but fear of having their names 
besmirched and honor questioned has made 
them trepid of exposing their theories and ex- 
periments to the criticisms of the world. And so, 
for his own benefit solely, the scientist, either 

of the "spirits." He, however, had been astonished at 
some phenomena witnessed, and in discussing the sub- 
ject with Dr. Hodgson, said: "If spirit return is pos- 
sible, I will move heaven and earth to come and com- 
municate after my death and give a proof as striking 
as possible of my identity." 

Shortly afterwards he met with an accident, in 
New York, and was instantly killed. 

A few weeks later, Dr. Hodgson having a sitting 
with Mrs. Piper, received a message from Geo. Pel- 
ham, who reminded the Doctor of their former dis- 
cussions on the survival of consciousness, etc., and 
he concluded by saying: "Well, Hodgson, old man, 
there is no death." 

On various occasions Geo. P. communicated with 
friends who had come to witness the fact, and, al- 
though they were unknown to the medium, were im- 
mediately recognized and their names given correctly 
by the "spirit" of Geo. P. 

One of those who came was a Mr. Howard (pseu- 
donyme), of Boston, a friend of Geo. P., who had dur- 



218 PSYCHISM. 



alone or with a few neutral friends, has studied 
these great and all-important questions, and kept 
for himself the results of his investigations. 

It must be said that hungry and venal palinodiae 
as well as sensational frauds have invested the 
subject with a certain degree of scandal which, 
in itself, suffices to cause the timid to hesitate; 
while, on the other hand, it strengthens the opin- 
ing life boarded in his house. At the first sitting Mr. 
Howard was greeted by name, the conversation com- 
menced and continued as though Geo. P. had been 
living among his friends. He touched (through Mrs. 
Piper's hand) the shirt buttons worn by Mr. Howard, 
and said: "These were mine; I like you to wear them, 
and am glad to bequeath them to you." He went 
further, and said: "I wore them the day I was 
killed, and mother sent them to you." "Pardon me, 
George," interrupted Mr. Howard, "your father sent 
them to me." "Father mailed them and wrote you, 
but it was mother who took the buttons from my 
body, gave them to father and asked him to send 
them, thinking they would be agreeable to you." 

Geo. P.'s father and mother, who live in Wash- 
ington, D. C, confirmed the statement of their son's 
"spirit" by letter, and came shortly after to Boston. 
As soon as they sat with Mrs. P., who did not know 
them, they were greeted by George, who conversed 
with them on personal matters, just as though he 
were yet in flesh. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 219 

ions of those who gather all their ideas from the 
columns of the newspapers. 

Moreover, a multitude, invested with power, 
have, under every pretext, sought to prevent the 
divulgation of this new knowledge. We will men- 
tion notably the scientific materialists on one side 
and the religious spiritualists on the other. Their 
opposing views retard, but will certainly not pre- 
vent truth from coming to light, and we may add 
that it (truth) is spreading and throwing an ef- 
fulgent light on the world of seekers. 

If any one cares to have an instance of how 
some prominent men receive that which does not 
fit in the frame of their ideas, we will entertain 
them with the following anecdotes : 

Some fourteen years ago, when we published 
our first work on the question which now occupies 
us, we went to Professor Vulpian, former Dean 
of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris and mem- 
ber of the Institute of France, etc., with a view 
of introducing our work to him, he having shown 
his good-will towards us in several circumstances. 
As soon as the subject of the book was made 



220 PSYCHISM. 



known, he looked his disapproval, and said some- 
what rudely, though with intentional kindness : 
"You know that I have always taken a sincere in- 
terest in your labors, but I must say that I am 
sorry to see you now engaged on a subject so 
doubtful." He assured us (though he had never 
made any researches in the matter) that in it there 
was naught but "Fraud and deception," and that 
if we continued to find occupation in such things, 
we would be "a man at sea." Those were his 
exact words. 

"Do you remember, dear Professor," we an- 
swered him, "that when Professor Bouley pre- 
sented at the Academy of Sciences, on behalf of a 
correspondent (i), a paper on the microbe of 
tuberculosis, you assured him that it could not 
exist? For, you said, if it were in existence it 
would already have been found, as it has been 
sought for a long time." "It is not the same 
thing," he answered, slightly embarrassed, for the 
said bacillus had since been described by Robert 
Koch. "The microbe of tuberculosis can be seen," 



(1) Toussaint, of Toulouse, who was probably the 
first to see and cultivate it. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 221 



he said, "the only thing was to discover a proc- 
ess by means of which it could be put in evi- 
dence." 

"It is a parallel case/' we responded. "The 
facts are palpable and we needed but a special 
process to render them demonstrable to touch and 
sight." 

Now Vulpian is dead. He knows to-day which 
one of us was right. 

Why did we offer our book to an Academician, 
and, still more, pretended to ask him to present it 
to the section of Sciences? We can see from 
here the stupefaction of the honorable mem- 
bers of the Institute hearing, in 1886, a communi- 
cation couched about as follows : 

"Gentlemen : — 

"I have the honor of presenting to the Acad- 
emy a paper from Dr. So-and-so, treating of 
ghosts and phantoms, as well as of the images 
to be obtained of the forms of these spirits by 
means of photography." 

We recognize now that to present our work to 



222 PSYCHISM. 



the Academy of Sciences as early as 1886 was cer- 
tainly a premature venture on our part. 

It may interest the reader to know also of the 
opinions expressed on the works of the author, by 
two of the greatest scientists of our age. 

Our lamented teacher, Louis Pasteur, to whom 
we presented, in July, 1889, a new edition of one 
of our books on matters psychic, looked at us 
half reproachfully, and said: "How dare you 
meddle with a subject so dreamy, misty and in- 
tangible, wherein human reason finds nothing to 
grasp and is lost, when it is already so difficult to 
make more than groping paces on the grounds of 
investigation where we deal with objective mat- 
ters falling under the control of our senses ?" 

"Dear, respected professor," we responded, "we 
can affirm to> you that the matter on which this 
book treats may be placed under the 'control of 
our senses' as easily as are the erstwhile invisible 
microbes which, for the great benefit of man- 
kind, you have been so fortunate as to ably reduce 
at command." 

His intelligent face, at this assertion, became 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 223 

stern and thoughtful, and he appeared surprised. 
He remained silent for a while, then promised us 
to peruse our work. 

We have the impression that, while we write 
these lines, his spirit hovers over us and speaks 
approval of the work we are now preparing. Of 
the book we offered him, alas, he never spoke, for 
the Angel of Death had touched his brow ! 



We had another interesting interview with the 
illustrious neurologist, J. M. Charcot, a few 
months before he was so suddenly stricken and 
torn from the affection of his numerous pupils, 
patients and admirers. 

When a student at his famous hospital, La Sal- 
petriere, we had had the honor of following his 
clinical lectures, and despite of his numerous oc- 
cupations, he was always kind in explaining and 
giving us his views on various subjects. With 
reference to our investigations on Psychism, he 
was rather conservative, but we concluded from 
his reticency that he had, to say the least, "en- 
trevu" the import of grandeur of this branch of 







224 PSYCHISM. 



knowledge. Nevertheless, alluding to our per- 
sonal position, he simply quoted the words of 

Brutus : 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

He meant by this that the author had compro- 
mised his scientific fortune in "dabbling" with an 
untimely, inopportune subject. He completed his 
thought in adding: "Despite the security of my 
position, (he could not reach a higher rank in 
scientific honors) I have decided to leave alone 
the subject of Hysteria." He, no doubt, thought 
the subject already too compromising. 

We listened in silence, yet before leaving him, 
for the last time, we could not refrain from re- 
plying: "Your advice is unquestionably sound; 
yet, were it not more courageous to ignore it?" 
At any rate, it came too late for us, and we will 
here state that even had it not, we would not have 
followed it. 

The hour of appreciation has not yet rung 
for these facts which will some day constitute 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 225 

the corollary of human knowledge. But in a little 
while we will see Mr. X., Y. or Z., professor of 
physiology or of nervous diseases, member of 
the Institute of France or of the Royal Society 
of London, taking up our experiments and those 
of our predecessors (Robert Hare, William 
Crookes, Boutlerow, the Committee of the Dia- 
lectic Society of London, Zoellner, etc., etc.,) and 
reading finished papers before the members of 
his societies, at the same time presenting to the 
wondering eyes of his colleagues specimens of 
''transcendental" photography. And, when doubt 
shall have fled, the Press will chant and echo his 
glory; those who, before, energetically repulsed 
and denied the truth, jealous of his success, will 
cry aloud : "There is nothing new in it," in order 
to appear well informed. Such is the destiny of 
men and things in the present race. 

* * * 

Notwithstanding the early statement made, 
wherein we said, that in this Essay we would 
waive all introduction and deal at once with facts, 
we feel it incumbent to enter an excuse if our 



226 PSYCHISM. 



studies should find the non-initiated reader un- 
prepared for the invasion made on his convic- 
tions and everyday knowledge. 

It may also be noted that we have made no 
observations on religious topics, thus protecting 
ourself from the accusation of having attacked 
or favored any belief in particular. Those who 
believe they have the monopoly of true insight, in 
religious or philosophical matters, cannot object 
to our earnest endeavor in learning the truth. 
He who is convinced and who labors in conform- 
ity with that which he believes to be an expression 
of truth, can but wish success to our undertaking, 
and consider it as being an auxiliary to his be- 
lief. 

We will limit ourself to the study of facts and 
endeavor to discern their consequence. And we 
beg the reader to believe that we are speaking 
only of what we know through observation and 
experimentation. ( i . ) 

(1) Following the example set by Sir William 
Crookes, in his Psychic Force, wherein he gives a re- 
sume of his work and his scientifice titles, the author 
begs permission to say that he thinks he has some 
right to assert that neither observation nor experi- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 227 



In the many examinations v which we have made 
of the phenomena just mentioned, we have always 
been inspired by the following words of Voltaire : 

mentation are foreign to him; as a physician, that is 
to say, as a professional observer, he has been exer- 
cising his faculties of observation for over twenty 
years, a great part of which was spent in the hos- 
pitals of Paris. 

As an experimenter, he effectively directed for 
several years the laboratory of Experimental and 
Comparative Medicine at the Museum of Natural Phil- 
osophy in Paris (Museum d'Histoire Naturelle) 
where, among numerous researches, it was given to 
him to demonstrate, through delicate experiments, 
that cold-blooded animals such as bactracians and 
fishes, may be made to contract certain maladies of 
the warmer-blooded animals (the bacteridian an- 
thrax), from which they usually are exempt 
(through raising their temperature to a degree near 
that of the mammifera, by causing them to live in 
warm water). (C. R. Academie des Sciences, 1882.) 

The interesting fact that birds, hens, etc., con- 
tract hydrophobia and transmit it to mammifera sev- 
erals weeks after inoculation, and yet can be cured or 
recover in a spontaneous manner, was first discov- 
ered by him. (Acad, des Sciences, 1884.) At the 
same time he demonstrated that rabies could not be 
contracted twice, as the birds which have once re- 
covered or been cured have not again become hydro- 
phobic when submitted a second time to inoculation. 

The author was the first to demonstrate the exist- 



228 PSYCHISM. 



( I ) . "Quand on a fait une experience, le meilleur 
parti est de douter longtemps de ce qu'on a vu et 
de ce qu'on a fait." 

We have also availed ourself of the timely 
word of advice given us by the illustrious Louis 
Pasteur, in a letter which he addressed to us, in 
1887, previous to our departure for the West In- 
dies, where we went as envoy from the French 
Republic to investigate Yellow Fever : 

ence of the germs or microbes of acute pemphigus and 
rabies, and the essay which he published upon the 
whole of his work on rabies and its treatment, was 
granted by the University of Medicine of Paris, one of 
the highest encomiums awarded to theses presented 
for its approval (1884). 

Finally, in high spheres, the author's faculties as 
an observer and experimenter have not been regarded 
as unimportant, for on five different occasions the 
Government of the French Republic intrusted him 
with the mission of studying in France and abroad 
two epidemics of cholera (1884-1885), two epidemics 
of yellow fever (West Indies, 1887; Florida, 1888- 
1889), and the experimental methods of various for- 
eign scientists. As for his work since he has been at 
the head of the New York Pasteur Institute, he can 
only refer to the quarterly Bulletin of this scientific 
institution. 

(1) Des Singularity de la Nature. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 229 



"Dear Dr. Gibier : — 

". . . Being familiar with the recent 
methods applied to the study of contagious dis- 
eases, you can further the difficult researches 
which you are about to undertake. 

"Above all, beware of one thing, viz.: Haste 
in reaching conclusions. Be to yourself a vigi- 
lant and persistent adversary. Always think that 
you may be mistaken. . . . 

"My congratulations and a cordial grasp of the 
hand. 

"L. Pasteur." 

It is only after having observed the phenom- 
enon of direct writing at least five hundred times 
that we decided to publish our observations. Fur- 
thermore, we were thoroughly aware of a number 
of facts of the same nature and far more extraor- 
dinary in appearance. 

We will add that for five years before our ma- 
triculation at the School of Medicine, we studied 
mechanics technically, a pursuit which we found 
to be of great aid in revealing mechanical trickery. 
We also made a slight study of prestidigitation, 



230 PSYCHISM. 



and we must confess, indeed, that through learn- 
ing the tricks of legerdemain we were able to 
detect any fraud which mediums might employ in 
their seances. 

On the other hand, we must ask it to be noted 
that we are not trying to work a propaganda for 
any doctrine whatever; we study the question 
from a purely scientific standpoint, nothing more. 
We will go further and add, that on all occasions 
we advise those who, in good faith, wish to con- 
vince themselves of the reality of such facts as 
form part of this study, to be (for reasons before 
mentioned) on their guard against a crowd of so- 
called mediums who should never be employed 
but under strict test conditions. 

In conclusion, we will say, that while we recog- 
nize the real existence of the phenomena herein 
studied, we are by no means the defender of the 
neo-spiritualistic doctrines which have, at least 
by some, been prematurely given as a starting 
point and basis the phenomena in question. 



If ever an axiom were faulty, it is the one 
wherein we are told, "We readily believe that 




ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 231 

which we desire." In a great majority of cases 
men hope, or rather desire, to live after death, 
under one form or another. We will explain: 
Scientists, for instance, even if they deny a here- 
after or the survival of consciousness, work not 
solely to benefit mankind, but with the aim of 
achieving fame and of having their iiames handed 
down to posterity. Therefore, the inference drawn 
is, that they wish to live, at least, in their works. 
Artists do likewise. We know full well that this 
desire for glory, that is to say, for a form of sur- 
vival, is generally pretty well welded to aspira- 
tions which are less ideal. But let us pass on. 
All that we wish to illustrate is, that notwith- 
standing these instinctive desires for immortality, 
the most of us show ourselves rebellious when it 
comes to the admission and the study of these 
phenomena which are best adapted to show the 
possibility, I dare not say of this immortality, but 
of at least a survival more or less prolonged, of 
this conscience of man after death. A rather 
curious, and at the same time contradictory fact 
is that this same repugnance is found among a 
fair number of spiritualist philosophers. 



232 PSYCHISM. 



It is no less a settled fact for those scientists 
who have observed the psychic phenomena deter- 
mined by the presence of mediums and fakirs, 
(the Hindoo mediums,) that they constitute the 
most certain proof we have of the existence of 
the spirit, or intelligence, as a conscious principle 
persisting after death. 

When the time arrives we will study the ques- 
tion of the duration of this conscience and of 
its transformation. For the present, we are led 
to believe, from the sources of knowledge drawn 
on and from personal observation, that in certain 
cases it persists for centuries. We will also add 
that time, in that after-life, loses its value, and, as 
we will see later on, is then entirely different from 
that which we have at present. 

* * * 

If this essay is favorably received by the chosen 
public for whom it is intended, we may in a later 
edition bring together its several paragraphs by 
adding some lines which we had to omit at the 
last moment. Certain subjects which we have not 
thought it yet time to insist upon will thus be 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 233 

completed. Notwithstanding the reserve, a rela- 
tive one, which we impose on ourselves, we can- 
not refrain from summarily stating how the phe- 
nomenon of death, according to the new data 
which psychic studies have already yielded, takes 
place. 

We have seen that just as is the Macrocosm, so 
is man made up of three fundamental parts : 
Matter, (The body.) 

Energy, (The soul.) 

Intelligence, (The spirit.) 

Each one of these parts may be considered 
under several different aspects, which would make 
as many sub-divisions, but we will defer entering 
into the details of a more complicated system of 
Hyper-physics. 

When true death occurs, the spirit is the first 
to abandon the body, leaving it in a more or less 
rapid way, according to the manner of death, 
At the same time, a certain part of the animic 
energy is dissipated, and, in a gradual way, re- 
enters the great common storehouse of Universal 
Energy. Another part of this force remains 
bound to the spirit, without which it would prob- 



234 PSYCHISM. 



ably return to Universal Intelligence, just as the 
matter of the body and a certain quantity of its 
energy return to the ambient matter and energy. 
But it is later that the animic force definitely 
leaves the body, providing it (the body) has not 
been destroyed by fire or through any other de- 
structive cause, immediately after death. 

In other terms, intellectual secession occurs first 
and the animic follows gradually, more or less 
rapidly, according to the manner of death and de- 
gree of temperature. It is, so to speak, the suc- 
cessive cellular death. Life, the anima, leaves the 
cells one by one, and the being of the new life 
is only definitely constituted when the animic 
force which permeated the various cells and glob- 
ules has left them to join once more the spirit 
towards which it tends, in virtue of a law analo- 
gous to the attractions which we observe, but 
whose nature at present is equally unknown to us. 

* * * 

In the same way that matter, even when in a 
supposed state of complete repose, contains po- 
tential energy, so does animic force contain in- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 235 



telligence in the germ or potential state. Matter 
is thus, according to these views, to which we 
call the reader's attention, a modality in evolution 
towards that energy from which it appears to pro- 
ceed, just as the latter would be in evolution to- 
wards intelligence, from whence all things pro- 
ceed and to which all things, in a perpetual circle, 
return. That is what has been figured by the 
ancient initiated ones in the Ouroboros (the ser- 
pent which feeds on itself, and is rolled in a circle, 
within which an ascending and a descending tri- 
angle are interlaced, indicating the two currents 
in contrary directions, which represent the life 
of the world.) This is also what the religious 
initiators of Humanity have meant to illustrate 
in their sacred histories wherein is written : "The 
spirit created the world out of nothing," that is to 
say, out of itself. 

The animated cells, containing intelligence in 
an embryonic state (if we may thus express our- 
selves), manifest this intelligence after the man- 
mer of the lower beings. They vibrate, assimilate, 
disassimilate, reproduce and remember. The phe- 



236 PSYCHISM. 



nomenon known under the name of immunity 
against an infectious disease which has already 
attacked the human body (or that of an animal) 
is but a phenomenon of cellular memory; and the 
manifestation of potential intelligence, the cell, a 
living being, in a measure independent, has thus 
once more victoriously fought the cells of the 
invading germs or microbes, and remembers that 
it did and how it did resist them, transmit- 
ting this memory (heredity) to its daughter-cells. 
It is only after a certain space of time that mem- 
ory is lost and immunity forgotten, (i.) Each 
individual in the polyzoic confederacy fights for 
all and seeks to the full bent of its power to expel 
from the territory of the republic the intruders 
who seek to live at its expense. Thus, each cell 

(1) "The digestive action thus determines the 
function of hepatic glands; but it must not be be- 
lieved that this is due to the ingestion of aliments. 
In an animal which is accustomed to take meals at 
8 o'clock A. M. the hepatic cell commences to work 
at about 10 A. M., and this occurs whether food has 
been partaken of or not. The cell has the habit of 
operating at 10 A. M. and thus operates. This is an 
instance of cellular memory." — (Henri Hilier, Revue 
Scientifique, No. 6, Vol. II., 1899.) 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 237 



in our body is a living being, an animal repre- 
senting a microscopical likeness of man, formed 
in due proportion, of matter, energy and intelli- 
gence. 

This theory differs from that of Durand de 
Gros, in so far that, instead of dividing man into 
sections, we see an individual in each cell of his 
body. These cells are grouped in various com- 
munities, which present to the observer racial or 
national (so to say) characteristics. Collectively, 
they perform specified functions. 

Man is composed of these collectivities, the 
whole of which is the image of mankind. 

The discovery of Phagocytosis by Mr. Met- 
schnikoff is a perfect demonstration of what we 
advance. This scientist showed, through delicate 
experiments, that the white cells of the blood 
and the lymphatic organs tillec" 'he part of police 
agents in the circulation of the humors of the 
body. Th^ moment a foreign element is intro- 
duced in our circulation, they unite in great num- 
bers, imprison and at once seek to stifle, devour 
and digest it, in a word, cause it to disappear. 
In this they frequently succeed, particularly when 



238 PSYCHISM. 



dealing with attenuated microbes, like the "vac- 
cinal" bacillus anthracis, etc., or those belong- 
ing to diseases not commonly fatal. Finally 
they tend to expel it, when they have to deal with 
a voluminous foreign body which they have not 
succeeded in encysting. 

We do not think that this theory of immunity, 
which we presented in 1889, had been introduced 
before, and we submit it to the judgment of sci- 
entific critics with the certainty that some day its 
accuracy will be recognized. (2.) 



This digression a propos of cellular life seems 
to us indispensable in order to give a true idea of 
the nature of man and his constituting elements. 
It remains intimately contingent to the nature of 
that which we are now trying to analyze. Let 
us pause once more on this subject. 

The fact which proves that under ordinary con- 
ditions the animic death, following intellectual 
death, occurs only progessively, is the discovery 

(2) From the contents of the preceding foot-note 
one may see that the idea has progressed. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 239 



of epidermic grafting by Dr. Reverdin, of Ge- 
neva, a former colleague of the author at the Hos- 
pitals of Paris. Every one knows that this graft- 
ing consists in the replacing of destroyed epi- 
dermis; in order to assist the development of a 
new covering surface. To replace the destroyed 
skin, small epidermic grafts are removed from 
other parts of the body, or from another person, 
and transplanted over wounds which would other- 
wise be slow to heal. These grafts continue to 
live where they have been placed, and even de- 
velop at their periphery. Therefore, they had not 
lost life when separated from the body. We can 
remove pieces of epedermis, and even large por- 
tions of skin from a body several hours after 
death and find that their anatomical elements con- 
tinue to live when grafted or sutured on the living 
body. Thus, notwithstanding death, there was 
no death. Skin grafting has now become an 
almost everyday occurrence, and the methods of 
application as varied as the purely experimental 
researches made on it. The skin of white men 
has been grafted upon negroes and vice versa. 
The result has been, that for some time the trans- 



210 PSYCHISM. 



planted skin remained of its natural hue, but in 
time partook of the color of its new owner. 

All those who have performed autopsies shortly 
after death (for instance during epidemics of 
Cholera and Yellow Fever) have been able to 
notice that the severed muscles contract under the 
scalpel, just as they do in the living body during 
amputation, animic death having not yet reached 
the muscular cells. The same may be said of ani- 
mals. The process of galvanization of executed 
men, whose faces become distorted and whose 
limbs are caused to jerk and twist, like those of 
puppets, again proves that organized matter 
maintains the. life which animates it, and that it 
is still excitable; the exciting agent alone has 
disappeared. If we could establish an artificial 
circulation and artificial breathing in the body of 
a man recently executed, whose intelligence has 
been definitely severed from his body, we might 
possibly obtain an automaton capable of living 
animically for a certain length of time, though 
already intellectually dead beyond recall. 

Reverdin's grafts prove that the epithelial cells 
continue to live and even to develop when they 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 241 



are transferred to a living medium. A fact which 
we observed in Havana (during the course of 
the mission for the study of Yellow Fever, which 
was confided to us by the French Government) 
shows that certain cells of the human body are 
capable of multiplying in non-living media, such, 
for instance, as gelose, (agar-agar), which serves 
to cultivate microbes. Thus, in a case of Yellow 
Fever, two hours after death, on December 23d, 
1887, we drew some liquid through the walls of 
the bladder, which had just been exposed at a 
point which we first cauterized with a redhot iron. 
We punctured it with a tube of glass, narrowed 
at one end (Pasteur's pipette), and with the 
broken and irregular end of this tube, which we 
had previously passed through the flame of an 
alcohol lamp, we lightly scraped the internal wall 
of the viscus and drew, by aspiration, a small 
quantity of the liquid contents. The tube was 
immediately sealed by heat, and half an hour 
afterwards its contents were placed in liquefied 
and neutral "gelose," which was placed in watch 
crystals and well protected in china vessels. (1.) 

(1) A process described by the author in a com- 
munication to the Academy of Medicine of Paris, 
1888. 



242 PSYCHISM. 



No colonies of microbes showed themselves, 
but a few days later we were agreeably surprised 
in seeing, in the transparent medium of agar-agar, 
a certain number of whitish, irregularly shaped 
pellicles, which were augmented day by day. We 
examined these small masses with the microscope ; 
they were composed of flat, irregularly shaped 
corpuscles furnished with a nucleus, and identical 
to the endothelial cells of the vesical mucous mem- 
brane. We observed them for some time, and 
their development was only stopped by the drying 
of the gelose and the invasion of the culture by 
the micro-organisms of the air. Inasmuch 
as at that time we were much engrossed 
with investigation on the "black vomit," we 
did not have time to follow the study of 
this interesting fact. Since then, we must 
admit, that, notwithstanding several attempts, 
a repetition of this experience could not 
be obtained with the same satisfactory results. 
The composition of the culture-medium must 
needs play an important part in the matter. How- 
ever this may be, we have not the slightest doubt 
to have witnessed the multiplication and the de- 






ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 243 

velopment outside of the human body of cells 
which had been a part of it, and if circumstances 
\llow, we shall try again to demonstrate this curi- 
ous pk^nomenon of animal cells growing in an 
inert medium. 

JfC 3JC 2g« 



Before closing this chapter, we do not think it 
superfluous to dwell a moment on that, which to 
our mind, constitutes a proof of the continuance 
of conscience after the destruction of the body. 

As we said before, we do not purpose relating 
other experiments, and for further accounts can 
only refer the reader to those which reliable ex- 
peHmt liters have already published. If he ad- 
mits that the researches made by Sir William 
Crookes and others as well as ourself, are of such 
a nature as to deserve serious attention, he will 
find in them an incentive for further study of the 
question. Through reading the principal mod- 
ern works treating on the matter, and through 
observation and personal investigation, he will 
very soon learn that we have not advanced too 
much, and moreover that we have kept within 



244 PSYCHISM. 



the bounds of truth. His conviction will grow on 
him in proportion, as his investigations will be 
more serious and more frequently repeated. The 
contrary (as may have been noticed) invariably 
happens in regard to an illusion. 

* * * 

Thus does man find himself, after death, in 
what we call the after-life, in a state which doubt- 
less is normal; the one in which we now live 
being but transitory, although its purpose or aim 
be a useful one. 

The experiments of which we have spoken are 
not the only ones which serve to prove the ex- 
istence of this great truth. We mentioned be- 
fore the work entitled Phantasms of the Living. 
In this book written by distinguished scientists 
we find innumerable accounts of those who at the 
time of death have appeared to friends and 
relatives living at a distance. It is impossible to 
believe that these events merely have to do with 
a series of accidental occurrences. 

The following observation which we have col- 
lected recalls many of those related in the above 
mentioned work: 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 245 



This case was communicated to us by M. Le- 
merle, captain in command of one of the steam- 
ships of the Compagnie Generale Transatlan- 
tique. After having related the fact, on board 
of the steamer La Fayette, while making a voy- 
age to the West Indies, in 1888, he confirmed his 
statement by two letters, the first one written Oc- 
tober 2d, 1888, and the second December 20th, of 
the same year, after a visit paid to his father, who 
was the "percipient" in the observation we are 
about to relate. 

M. Lemerle, Sr., is also a sailor. In 1870 he 
commanded a brig, which was on the home trip 
from Carrara, loaded with marble, consigned to 
Rouen. 

The brig was slowly sailing along the coast of 
Portugal in a rather heavy sea, wnen one day, as 
he was on the deck of his vessel, M. Lemerle, 
Sr., suddenly saw beside him his brother, also a 
sailor and sea-captain. This brother, we were 
told, was not on very good terms with him, and 
no accurate ksowkdge of his wnereabouts was 
kept. Sc was supposed to be somewhere at sea, 
but that was all thai was known of him just then. 



246 PSYCHISM. 



The captain was not thinking of his brother 
at the time, and, though he had never experienced 
such a thing before, concluded that it was an ap- 
parition. 

This apparition, moreover, haunted him several 
succeeding days, and followed him on the bridge 
and on deck, in his state-room, and even accom- 
panied him at table, though invisible to all others. 

We will give Captain Lemerle's own words : 

"Much disturbed by this occurrence, my father 
stopped at Belle Isle, and from there telegraphed my 
motner, asking if anything had happened at home. (1) 

"The answer given was, that a great misfortune 
had occurred to the family. My uncle Toussaint, 
father's brother, the same whose image had so viv- 
idly appeared a few days before, had been carried 
overboard while in command of a ship on the At- 
lantic. 

"It was the only time that my father observed a 
phenomenon of this kind." 

In his second letter M. Lemerle, who was about 
to assume a position in the Antilles, wrote in 

(1) Owing to the absence of precise dates and 
the rules of the telegraph office (Government's), we 
could not make inquiries as to the telegrams here 
mentioned. 






ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 247 

answer to some questions which we had asked of 
his father on certain points regarding the appari- 
tion: 

"Before leaving France I consulted my father oh 
the subject of the vision which he had some years 
ago. 

"There is absolutely nothing to be modified in 
what I told you on board the steamship "La 
Fayette." 

"My father was unable to say exactly whether the 
presentment of his brother appeared material or not; 
his memory, owing to advanced age, is becoming de- 
fective. Yours, etc., F. Lemerle, 
"Captain in Command of Steamships for the Com- 
pagnie Generate Transatlantique." 

In the last few years this kind of apparition has 
been improperly termed "Veridic Hallucina- 
tion." 

* * * 

We will only add a few remarks to this 
long chapter, and endeavor to explain how mani- 
festations like the one just related occur, more 
especially at the time of death. According to the 
theory which we deduce from our observations, 
it is because the intelligence may dispose imme- 
diately after death of a certain amount of free 



248 PSYCHISM. 



animic energy which abandons the body little by 
little, after what we have termed the intellectual 
secession (we fear we are not comprehended by 
all, but we trust to time to remedy this condition). 
On the other hand, these facts are more com- 
monly observed in some countries than in others. 
This depends on two principal causes. In the 
first place, certain races, for instance, the Scotch 
and the Swedes, are particularly predisposed to 
the phenomena of double sight, and abmaterial- 
ization of the animic force, etc. Besides the 
question of race there may exist an effect due to 
the magnetic influence of the country. North 
America appears to present this condition. An- 
other cause, which in our opinion is most impor- 
tant, is held in the fact that a person dying with 
the fixed certainty that this state is a mere transi- 
tion, must be less disturbed than one ignorant of 
his future. He first understands far more rapid- 
ly the situation in which he finds himself and is 
able, at the time of death, to utilize that part of 
animic energy which he cannot retain, and 
forms therewith a visible image after his own 
likeness (he clothes himself with materialized or 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 249 

materializing energy) or perhaps produces a state 
of fascination upon those whom he wishes to ac- 
quaint with his death, or rather, opens in them 
a special sens of perception of his projected 
thought. For, later on, it will be known that 
often these forms are not the very individual in- 
telligence or consciousness of the persons whom 
they resemble, but only their projected thought, 
their image, their idol, as the ancients were wont 
to call it ( eidcoXov ) the shell of these persons. 
In fact, these occurrences are chiefly observed 
in places where spiritualistic ideas of one kind or 
another are prevalent. 



In the Middle Ages a number of curious facts 
were also observed, and have been transmitted to 
us by chroniclers and through the prosecutions 
for witchcraft. Allowing a large margin, as we 
must of course, for error, exaggeration and the 
hallucinations due to superstition, there neverthe- 
less remains a goodly number of inexplicable 
phenomena due to the miserable existence led in 
those days by all the unfortunate victims of ig- 



250 PSYCHISM. 



norance and terrorized fanaticism. This state of 
physical and moral misery had a powerful influ- 
ence on the constitution of these degraded beings, 
and awakened all their more or less latent medi- 
umistic faculties. 

There is still an historical fact which cannot 
be altogether separated from the preceding ones 
and which, so far, lacks an explanation. It is 
the touching epopee of the "Maid of Orleans, 
the heroical Joan of Arc. 



>> 



We think that since the reader has been over 
the preceding pages, it is opportune that we con- 
dense some of the points and expatiate on others, 
the theory regarding thought transference, clair- 
voyance, clairaudience, which we have outlined 
in the preceding pages. As for the apparition of 
phantasms of the living or the dead, etc., we have 
just given that which we think to be a plausible 
explanation of this phenomenon. 

We have shown man as a globule of the univer- 
sal intelligence; a ray of the Absolute, mo- 
mentarily associated with organic matter through 
the bonds of a special form of Energy. In fact, 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 251 

we think this theory does not differ sensibly from 
that of Plato and the Neo-Platonicians. The lat- 
ter were unable to establish the righteousness of 
their theory, while we have every reason to be- 
lieve that a proof will soon be one of the principal 
achievements of modern science. 

If we admit that we are part of the Absolute, 
we are compelled to accept the hypothesis that it 
is for a purpose that this fraction is almost com- 
pletely — though temporarily — isolated from the 
whole, and that it had to be so for the necessities 
of animal life on the planet. In this condition 
where the impersonal becomes personal, the in- 
finite, finite, the sub-being knows but few mo- 
dalities of the pulsations of universal life ; in other 
words, the undulations of Ether. We perceive 
some modes of light, heat and electricity which 
are all forms of energy whose differences are due 
to the difference in length of the waves or vibra- 
tions of Ether, produced by Energy. For we 
know that the length of these waves varies from 
a unit to millions, or in other terms, that millions 
of species of waves ethereal, are in existence. Our 
sense of perception can only note the effect of a 



252 PSYCHISM. 



very small number of them. The inductive 
method and calculus enable us to conceive the 
length of waves which may be demonstrated ex- 
perimentally later on. Therefore, there are mil- 
lions of waves which determine important phe- 
nomena of which we have no conception and for 
which we have no name any more than we would 
have for the mountains of a terra incognita (i). 

Thought, which is a manifestation of the spirit, 
is a form of energy, the ethereal waves of which 

(1) It is probable that Ether is material, and 
even more so than any matter that we see in the 
World. Indeed, it seems proven, from calculations 
based on the wave-lengths of light, electricity, etc., 
that its density is far higher than would be all the 
matter of the stars, if they were volatilized and uni- 
formly spread in their field of space. For instance, if 
our sun and its planets were "dissolved" in the space 
allotted for their revolutions, the density of the whole 
world would be thousands of times lower than that of 
Hydrogen. 

Contrariwise, if, in the same space, the earth, all 
the other planets and the Sun were condensed in one 
mass, the latter would present an insignificant vol- 
ume as compared to the space now occupied by our 
system. The volume of that mass could be compared 
to "a grain of dust floating in a space of several hun- 
dred cubic miles." (Muller.) 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 253 



are not normally perceived by our senses, and we 
must acknowledge that in the present conditions 
of life this is rather a fortunate disposition. But, 
through especial modifications, we may perceive 
the thought-waves of a brain with which we are 
en rapport. This is the only explanation of 
thought transference or "telepathy" harmonizing 
with the present data of mathematics and physics 
on light, electricity, heat, &c. 

In certain states, (hypnotic, crystal gazing, 
ecstasy, clairvoyance, etc.), as previously men- 
tioned, we abmaterialize a part of our higher 
self, and, in a manner more or less distinct, ac- 
cording to the intensity of exteriorization, we 
come in relation with that called the Absolute, 
i. e., with the source of our higher Ego. Then 
it is that we may perceive, under the appearance 
of images, ideas or new forms of energy, for 
which we are temporarily receptive : events past, 
present and future, and indescribable scenes of 
novel and supra-normal phenomena. 

Time, as we now conceive it, ceases to exist. 
Past and Future are confounded in an eternal 
Present. 



254 PSYCHISM. 



Space, so to speak, is abolished as thought 
may be present simultaneously on two 1 opposite 
points of the immensity. In this way, far-dis- 
tant scenes are described by clairvoyants. 

Number appear no longer to be a reality, unless 
under form of laws which the Absolute permeates 
as everything else in the Universe. Problems 
do no longer exist, as their solution is but the fu- 
ture of their present, and is, therefore, seen on 
the same plane. In our commaterial condi- 
tion this is demonstrated by the existence of 
mathematical prodigies who, receiving glimpses 
of the Absolute, see or "feel" the solution of a 
problem almost as soon as it has been formulated 
in their entendement. The problem so readily 
solved by them, often requires several hours' 
work from professional calculators. In short, 
through partial liberation of our higher self, or 
some mysterious sens, we come en rapport with 
the Absolute. Thus is the vision of a great poet 
realized (2), a vision received in one of his most 
beautiful insoirations : 

* 

(2) Leconte de l'lsle. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 255 



O Mort! Divine Mort ou tout rentre et s'efface, 
Regois-nous, tes enfants, dans ton sein etoile; 
Delivre-nous du Temps, du Nombre et de l'Espace 
Bt rends-nous le repos que la Vie a trouble! 



Such is the theory which to us appears more 
satisfactory than the hypothesis of subliminal 
consciousness and telepathy. 

When a phenomenon of a psychical nature is 
observed, the custom, at present, is to promptly 
classify it under the head of telepathy, thus re- 
lieving the psychologist from further explanation. 
This reminds us of a story which Claude Bernard 
told : When a young man serving an apprentice- 
ship, he was in the employ of an old apothecary 
of Lyons, who seemed to have curious ideas re- 
garding the exercise of his profession. About 
once a year he made an inventory of his phials, 
boxes, pots and drawers. Whenever an unguent 
or other derelict was found lacking label or other 
mark of identity, the old man, after a perfunctory 
nose examination, would say to his apprentice: 
"Well, put it away, we'll use it for theriaca!" 
As is well known, theriaca was an electuary com- 
posed of sixty-four ingredients. One more or 



256 PSYCHISM. 



less ! Our apothecary, who, indeed, evinced more 
than legitimate skepticism in matters pharmaceu- 
tical, thought that the proper place for a drug or 
mixture of doubtful nature was in the mortar 
where, under his benevolent eyes, his theriaca 
was prepared, secundum artem. After his ap- 
prenticeship, Claude Bernard relinquished phar- 
macy and gave free scope to his inborn scientific 
spirit which was shocked through such prac- 
tices. Similarly, it seems to us that psychologists 
are too easily satisfied by the electuary of sublim- 
inary consciousness and the theriaca of telepathy 
where they mix all kinds of psychic ingredients. 
For instance, if in a seance the medium, through 
automatic writing or otherwise, receives from the 
departed a message touching on private matters, 
the supposition is, that the medium, through tele- 
pathic means, read and answered the demands of 
vour mind. Telepathy, they claim, it is nothing 
more than telepathy! Again, if a hypnotic sub- 
ject passes through different stages, instead of 
seeing that these stages are only phases of the 
same state, varying according to the subject and 
the experimenter, the teachings of the doctrine 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 257 



are that it must be due to the manifestation of 
second or third personality which, during the 
normal state, is deeply hidden in the subliminary 
theriaca ! 

According to the views already expressed, 
the best part of our self is engaged in watching 
the vegetative functions of the body, in keeping, 
so to say, the cells together. Its rapport with the 
Absolute is disconnected. The spirit, in its rela- 
tion to the body, may be compared to a sword: 
when sheathed nothing is seen of it but the hilt ; 
in drawing it, the upper part of the blade appears 
thick and blunt, while further down, in portions 
which were more deeply encased, we find an in- 
creasing sharpness which culminates in a fine 
acerated point ! 

We have indicated how the spirit, though 
still united to the body, could, in a measure and 
under special conditions, enter in relation with 
the Absolute. Is this relation still more intimate 
during normal sleep and after the complete di- 
vorce between spirit and matter? More inti- 
mate, indeed, it must be. But, if we rely upon 



258 PSYCHISM. 



our experience, it is not so, immediately after 
death. Evolution may not cease with this life, 
but continue hereafter, at least for the "chosen 
ones," who, becoming more and more intimately 
related to the Absolute, from whence they came 
at the beginning of time, continue until they are 
the Absolute itself. 

* * * 

A French writer (i) has recently provoked a 
certain amount of discussion by accusing Sci- 
ence of having disappointed the expectations of 
the world. He termed it the "Bankruptcy of 
Science." We do not feel inclined to dispute this 
opinion, which would be right if Science, that is 
to say, the human power of research, had stopped 
its labors. We will only state that the aim of 
Science (to which we have already alluded) is 
higher than the scope of vision of any man in 
particular and we hold the profoundest conviction 
that Humanity will feel an increase of thankful- 
ness towards her the day on which, speaking 
with full knowledge, she shall be able to say to 
(1) M. BrunetiSre. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 259 
man: "Dying Hermes was right, when, with eyes 

■ 

already dazed by the sight of an Eternity whose 
veil was falling before him, he spoke these words : 
"Until this day I have lived an exile from my 
true country; I am returning to it; do not weep 
for me ; I am about to reach the celestial dwelling 
where each one of you will go in turn; there is 
God. This life is but a death." (2) 



(2) Chalcidias, in Timaeum. 



PART IV. 

The Influence of "Future Science" Upon 

Religion, Philosophy, Science, 

the Arts, etc., 




CHAPTER I. 

Summary. — The disturbances and revolutions 
which the new data of Science are to cause in the 
various branches of Human Intellectuality. — Pertur- 
bation in religious opinions. — Great Pan is dead; 
long live the Great Pan. — The new religion. — The leg- 
end of the stones. — The cycle of religions, or the 
cycle of religion-science. — Disturbances in the 
sciences, in Medicine, in Biology. — The arts, and 
especially literature, are beginning to show the in- 
fluence of the "Science of To-Morrow." — A synthetical 
and retrospective glance. — Conduct of the Wise. — 
The end. 

The title of this fourth part is, perhaps, mis- 
leading, particularly if the reader expects to find 
in these pages a complete development of a sub- 
ject on which an interesting volume might be 
written. Indeed, one has only to think a moment 
to form in one's mind a conception of the revo- 
lutionary changes that will be determined, in the 
objects of the intellectual and religious cult of 
man, by this new branch of Science : Psychism, 



262 PSYCHISM. 



which will reveal to us the conditions of the 
existence of the soul, of the self-conscious in- 
telligence both in commmaterial and abmaterial 
states, before and after death. 

As may be understood, it cannot be without 
giving rise to an immense movement in the va- 
rious branches of human intellectuality that the 
facts which we are treating will be studied, as 
they, perhaps, have never been before, and 
brought to the knowledge of the public. 

Indeed, the dangers exist no longer which 
necessitated keeping secret all work done in the 
ancient laboratories. The fire of the stakes has 
been quenched, and the crowd, though still a 
crowd, has amended itself, and every day be- 
comes less ignorant and evil. It follows the law 
of evolution, which, however slow its progres- 
sion, everything obeys, ss History teaches us, 
notwithstanding its brevity in time and space. 
We may say also that it is high time to disenthrall 
the most intelligent part of mankind from the 
anarchistic condition of ideas in which it is now 
fretting. 

We all know by experience that it will not 
be without discussions that the teachings of 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 263 



Psychism will be accepted. But, although the op- 
positions have already been numerous, a change 
has been wrought, the greater part of the young 
generation, not having the same reasons for re- 
sisting which the older one had, will see these 
"novelties" without objection, not having yet ac- 
quired the prejudices of its predecessors. More- 
over, whether we are prejudiced or not, facts 
are facts and cannot be suppressed. 

* * * 

At first, let us try to foresee what will occur 
in the various religious camps which divide the 
civilized world. It is not difficult to< conceive 
an idea of the disturbance which will ensue when 
the ancient doctrines are introduced and sanc- 
tioned by modern experimental method. Priests, 
ministers and other spiritual advisers, men honest 
and o>f good intent, will break from the ranks of 
their profession, declaring that their principle 
and honesty forbade teaching that which they no 
longer believe. ( I . ) 

(1) That is what has already happened; without 
speaking of Europe, we may find many examples of 
it in America. 



264 PSYCHISM. 



In time, others (i) will beseech the Pontiff of 
Rome to "head a movement of reform, in which 
all the Christian sects would join to organize, on 
earth, the kingdom of God. The Church, di- 
vided from the first, after having been powerless, 
notwithstanding the help of the secular arm to 
repress the hundreds of heresies which have torn 
its bosom, would find its salvation in Science." 

For Science will prove, after all, that under va- 
rious symbols, all esoterisms are alike, and that 
there is but one religion. 

But it is difficult to erect a fine and substan- 
tial edifice from the old and burnt timber gath- 
ered from ancient ruins. The majority of the 
ministry will cry out that the Antichrist, so long 
announced in the Scriptures, has come, and that 
these inventions of scientists are nothing but 
manifestations of the infernal power of the Prince 
of Darkness. Many will remain obdurate to the 
truth, the simple yet grand and imposing Truth ! 
And in their blindness will cry, "It does not 
exist . . . !" 

(1) Like Abbot Roca, who, by the way, was at 
once interdicted. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 265 

For that race is not yet ready to disappear 
that would oblige ripened wisdom to walk in 
swaddling clothes, by imposing to-day on revolt- 
ed reason, the teachings of centuries that have 
gone forever! It is, as we wrote elsewhere, 
very difficult to eradicate from our minds "errors 
which have been absorbed in the blood with the 
maternal milk." As the poet tells us : 

By education most have been misled. 
So we believe because so we were bred. 
The priest continues what the nurse began, 
And thus the boy imposes on the man. 

But the great voice which it is said was heard 
of yore crying "Great Pan is dead!" shall be 
heard again in the words that shall resound and 
be echoed a thousand times from remotest parts 
of the earth : "Long live the Great Pan !" For a 
new religion will arise. Its adepts will be recog- 
nized, in that they will pronounce "Anathema" 
against no one, but will urge instead, "Out of 
our church there would still be salvation, could 
one get beyond its pale. Our church knows no 
portals, it is truly universal, and is called the 
world. It is the Church of Pan, the Church of 
the Great All ! ! !" 



266 PSYCHISM. 



It will seek to convert no one, but in turn will 
convince all. As before mentioned, men always 
end in agreeing upon such things as can be sub- 
mitted to the evidence of their senses, especially 
if aided by modern scientific research. This is 
precisely the method to which it will resort. 

It will teach that everything be subjected to 
the judgment of our reason, and that nothing be 
accepted without examination. It will forbid 
people to believe, but will advise them to study 
and inform themselves in order to know. It will 
assign no limit to the acquisition of knowledge, 
and out of, all positivists it will make progressists. 

It will not say to men, "Love ye one another, 
but instead, "Love yourself. But learn that you 
cannot love yourself profitably unless you love 
others as well and even better than your own 
self." This may be rendered algebraically 
through the following aphorism : Altruism is the 
true Egoism! 

it will teach that society can have but a trou- 
bled and ephemeral life, unless it takes for a 
model of organization man's body, which itself 
is made after the image of the world. And thus 



}> 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 267 

will fratricidal wars between members of a na- 
tion be ended. 

It will teach human societies that they can 
only have a prosperous and durable existence on 
condition that they live with other human groups 
like the members of a happy family, a family 
happy in itself. And thus the homicidal wars 
between nations that are but the various limbs 
of humanity, will be ended. 

To those whose hearts are hard, cold and self- 
ishly egotistical, it will prove by A + B that 
their own interest orders them to act as though 
they were good, for the misery of the poor distills 
an acrid and virulent gall which filters into the 
rich man's cup, and even contaminates the veins 
of his children. ( I . ) 

It will prove that enjoyment cannot exist and 
that civilization is yet half barbaric, so long as 
the beggar infests our door and nations require 
armed protection. 

Its councils will have no other creed than the 

(1) For an illustration of this affirmation, see a 
paper, by the author: Microbes et la Question So- 
ciale. Revue Scientifique, 1894. 



268 PSYCHISM. 



data of the experimental method. Its cult will 
be the cult of Human Progress towards the non- 
suffering, and it will gain the whole sublunar 
world to its fraternal harmony. 

On the other hand, it will show the inanity of 
the efforts of those, who, impatient of enjoying 
themselves or soured by suffering, resort to vio- 
lence and crime in order to amend what they 
term the wrongs of society. ( i . ) It will appeal 

to them as well as to those who might fail to see 
the utility of the temporary union of the spirit 
with matter, through such symbolical parables 
as, for instance, the following legend : 

"THE LEGEND OF THE STONES." 

There was a time when the most learned men 
of their era thought that among all beings, man 
alone was able to feel. Since then the error in 
which they had fallen has been recognized; but 
the end had not yet been reached ; for matter, the 
whole of matter, is sentient. Polyzoism is a true 
and exact theory ; for instance, all bodies, without 

(1) The author has already referred to this sub- 
ject in a paper entitled The Physician and the So- 
cial Question. North Am. Review, No. IV., 1895. 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 269 

any exception, are able to feel heat and cold and 
show it to us . . . The Ether, that is to say 
life, permeates everything. 

Once upon a time when the stones were able to 
speak, a shapeless and obscure stone was telling 
its sorrows to another, the burden of which was : 
A being who calls himself Lord of Creation 
takes upon himself the right of striking us, of 
wounding us with blows from a hard and sharp 
tool. He breaks us, deprives us of the better 
part of our own selves and will, I greatly fear, 
stop only when he shall have completely destroyed 
us!" 

The other answered: "Your misfortunes are 
nothing as compared to ours. Know then that 
this barbarous king, this soulless god — man — 
since we must call him by that hated name, came 
and tore us from the bosom of the earth, where 
for time immemorial we were so quietly resting, 
that we had even lost the memory of our origin. 
Then he discovered us, and with that same tool 
of which you complain, tore us from our mother 
— Earth. And still more, my sister, he now casts 
us within roaring furnaces in which our blood 
is carbonized and turns into vapors, and where 



270 PSYCHISM. 



our bones, first calcined, then melt under the 
wind of his infernal breath . . ." 

Thus did these two obscure and shapeless 
stones exhale their complaints upon each other's 
bosom. 

But some time after they again met, united in 
a diadem which crowned the head of that King 
whom they had cursed, upon the brow of that 
god against whom they had been wont to blas- 
pheme. And they found that the one was in 
the shape of a golden circle that shone brightly, 
while the other was a diamond from whence 
issued a thousand rays. And they were admired 
by all. 

Then said they to one another, somewhat em- 
barrassed: "How mad were we, sister mine, to 
complain of our fate ; instead of the coarse blocks 
of rough matter that we once were, we have 
passed through all degrees of refinement, and this 
day we shine with the brightest light upon the 
brow of our master, who now unites us in his 
glory ! " 

* * * 

However, one must not imagine that the new 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 271 



Science-Religion will "rock human misery to 

sleep" through the revival of the "old song." On 

the contrary, it will keep human minds awake to 

the danger of misery and help to its destruction 

and its replacing by a satisfactory average of 

happiness for each human being. And thus will 

end another cycle, the cycle of religions. At 

the beginning of human society, as a matter 

of fact, the rudimentary and fetichistic religion 

was confounded with man's science, which was of 

a primitive kind. Later, in the same measure 

that science has developed, it has moved from 

religion. But Science advances, and when it 

reaches its Zenith, it will again be confounded 

with religion, that is to say, it will be religion 

itself, (i.) But how different all will then 

(1) When lecturing, we have been in the habit of 
illustrating this by the accompanying diagram: 

R=S 
R + S 



R 




R— S 



272 PSYCHISM. 



be: at the start illusion and ignorance; at the 
apex clear and startling truth. 

* * * 

After the aforegoing considerations must we 
show what a wrench the rudder-wheel of philoso- 
phy will receive under the impulse of this new 
science? We think not. One may well under- 
stand that, aided by the postive acquirements 
obtained from Psychology, Philosophy will be 
able to make great strides, for the limitations of 
knowledge have not yet been reached, and seem, 
at least for some of us, to be boundless. 

We need not insist either on the change which 
we foresee for Science. New facts, new fields 
of investigation are now open to Physics, Chem- 
istry and Biology, and many apparently well-es- 
tablished doctrines will yield to more enlightened 
ones, enlightened by the study of Psychism. As 
for the influence of Psychism on the arts, it has 
already been strongly felt, especially on literature. 

Medicine, an art which tends to become more 
and more scientific, will receive an amazing im- 
pulse when laboratories are instituted for the pur- 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 273 

pose of advancing psychical research. For 
laboratories must be established, whose works 
and discoveries will bear results, such as, perhaps, 
none of the actual branches of science are able 
to give us. 

Those who will devote themselves to these 
studies in a wiselike manner, will win a glorious 
renown; their names will go down to posterity, 
and may achieve greater fame than any other 
name borne by actual scientists. 

The nation which shall first encourage the in- 
vestigations of this science will mark its path in 
history with a luminous wake. 

* * * 

If we may cast a rapid glance over some of the 
views expressed in the preceding chapters we will 
grasp the idea which guided the author in his 
"Analysis," whose elements we will now try and 
bring together in a short synthetic resume. 

As in a swiftly passing vision, the author has 
first endeavored to give an idea of the Cosmos 
at the beginning of a Cycle ; he tried to show the 
constitution of the cosmic circle within which a 



274 PSYCHISM. 



similar concentrical circle, man, is enclosed as is 
a nucleus within a cell. Unable to carry too dar- 
ing a hand within the Macrocosm, he merely 
chanced a timid comparison between the latter 
and man, Microcosm, whose nature he has 
studied with more details and greater possibilities. 

He finally endeavored to show that man is 
composed of an immediately transmutable prin- 
ciple (matter) which is not truly himself, and of 
a superior principle (intelligence) which is his 
real Ego, and survives the matter to which he is 
temporarily united, and upon which he acts by 
means of a third principle (Energy), which is no 
more his Ego than is matter. Hence, when death, 
which is the separation of these three funda- 
mental principles, takes place, it is accomplished 
in two primary stages: I, the intellectual; 2, 
the animic, to which might be added the material, 
comprising the complete transformation of 
matter, if the latter did not, immediately after 
death, become so indifferent to the spirit. 

Let us, while passing, recall the fact that the 
power of action of Energy is in direct ratio with 
the complexity, the delicacy, the instability of 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 275 

combination of matter. Or, contrariwise, the fur- 
ther matter is distant from the mineral state, the 
more sensitive it is to the influence of Energy. 
On the other hand, the spirit or mind may act 
upon Energy when the latter, through a proper 
adaptation of wave lengths, becomes animized, 
that is to say, when it approaches a state akin to 
its own. 

In other words, life, as we observe it, shows 
itself at the converging point of three principles. 
Or, if we prefer : The Spirit has "animized" En- 
ergy and organized Matter in order to cause 
them to act upon each other. 

* * * 

That which distinguishes the theory sketched 
in this work from anterior animistic theories, is, 
that it presents man as a whole, composed of 
a multitude of parts which are semi-autonomous. 
Each one of the cells of the human body has its 
matter, (body), its energy (soul) and its rudi- 
ment of intelligence (mind or spirit). But they 
are bound to the destiny of the whole body 
(Necessity), they have a share of spontaneous- 



276 PSYCHISM. 



ness (Will), and reasoning man is interested in 
the proper accomplishment of their function 
(Providence). The combined mass of the cells 
constitutes man, the epitome of the Universe. 
And it is our opinion that the demonstration of 
this theory may be obtained through experi- 
mental Psychology. 

* * * 

While writing the concluding lines of these 
pages, in which the reader may have found some 
interest, we ask that he will believe that we have 
been guided by no other motive than that indi- 
cated and advocated in this work, viz., true ego- 
ism: Through promulgating scientific truth, we 
benefit our fellow-beings and, thus, develop our 
Ego. 

We cannot say whether the theories which we 
have advanced, and especially those not directly 
based upon experiment, will ever be verified. But 
this matters not, if they lead others to do better ! 
In this regard we beg to terminate in taking the 
reader as confidant of our inner thought : 

He who seeks truth for its own sake and for 



ANALYSIS OF THINGS EXISTING. 277 

the commonweal, looks at things from on high. 
He labors in order to reduce them to their true 
proportions with regard to the immensity of Time 
and Space. 

He sees the ruin of his theories with indiffer- 
ence, and it is without regret that he makes room 
for better ones, when he learns that his own 
cannot lead to the path of truth. 

Measuring the value of renown by the trace of 
good which it leaves behind, he, consequently, 
does not work for vain glory, for he cannot ignore 
that even the greatest fame is soon lost — forgotten 
and nameless — in the Ocean of Time. 

And lastly, he feels he knows that he is but one 
of the solitary cells of that grand collective per- 
sonality which has been named Humanity, and 
it is for it that he struggles, and suffers if need be, 
regardless of reward. 



THE END. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 

A STUDY OF THE MACROCOSM. 



CHAPTER I. 

VIEWS OF THINGS IN GENERAL. 

Summaey: The path to be followed in the study 
of things. — Study of the Macrocosm. — Periodical Cat- 
aclysms. — Movements of waters and ice from one to 
the other hemisphere. — Deluges. — A comparison be- 
tween the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres. — 
Alternative layers of marine fossils separated by fos- 
sils of the aerial existence. — What is matter? — The 
unextended atom. — Energy. — The law of indestructi- 
bility of matter. — Atoms are fluid elements. — Penetra- 
bility of matter. — The prodigiously energetic motions 
of molecules. — Atoms. — Vortices. — The Universe tends 
towards absolute repose. — According to a number of 
modern scientists the philosophical analysis of mat- 
ter, assisted by experiments, shows that it is but com- 
pacted energy in a transitory form. — The most power- 
ful form of illusion is termed reality. 

Page 13 



280 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

Summary: The general interdependence of things. 
— The science of the ancients was vast and deep; 
modern discoveries show it. — Why they did not popu- 
larize it. — The necessity of uplifting one's thought in 
order to obtain a fair idea of things. — What the au- 
thor means by a lucid zone. — Principle and conse- 
quence of the independence of the absolute. — The 
opinion of Laplace. — Materialization of Energy. — Ori- 
gin of the worlds. — Formation of the Sun and of the 
Planets. — Ideas of Laplace upon the plurality of in- 
habited Worlds.— End of the Worlds.— The Night of 
Brahma. — What becomes of human conscience among 
the ruins of the Universe? — Man, a cell of the Great 
Being. — Rapidity of the translation of the so-called 
fixed stars. 

Page 29 



PART SECOND. 

A STUDY OF THE MICROCOSM. 



CHAPTER I. 

Summary: A glance at the knowledge which 
Physiology has given us of ourselves up to the pres- 
ent time from the psychical point of view. — The phys- 
ico-chemical doctrines. — The animistic and vitalistic 
doctrines. — Modern materialistic doctrines. — The 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 281 

opinion of Claude Bernard upon Living Matter. — 
Opinions of divers medical men, and other scientists. 
— Are life and intelligence mere properties of mat- 
ter? — Organic, animal and intellectual life. — The 
progress of the nervous influx. — The rapidity of the 
nervous current through the nerves. — Pathology- 
shows that will has no exclusive seat within one or 
the other of the cerebral hemispheres. — Modern opin- 
ions on the properties of nervous cells. — Are ideas 
nought but infinitesimal electrical discharges, pro- 
duced by the nervous cells? — Part played by the Pos- 
itivistic method. 

Page 47 



CHAPTER II. 

Summary: The part to be played in future by ex- 
perimental Physiology in the study of the essence of 
Life, of the Vital Ether. — Psychological physiology 
will have to follow its study as far as, and even after, 
death. — Matter and Energy admitted as two consti- 
tuting elements of the Universe. — If there exists in 
the Universe nothing but matter and energy, con- 
science must be extinguished simultaneously with 
death, the last function of the body. — But there is a 
third element. — Ancient origin of materialisms, as 
well as of spiritualisms. — The opinion of Solomon, of 
Moses, of the Eastern Buddhistic Sects. — Quotations 
from the "Ruines" of de Volney. — Pantheism. — Nir- 
vana. — Neant (nothingness). — The causes which oper- 



282 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



ate to breed disagreement among philosophers. — The/ 
will all agree some day, at least as far as primordial 
ideas are concerned, thanks to experimental Science. 

Page 65 



PART THIRD. 

THE SEARCH FOR THE THIRD ELEMENT 
OF THE UNIVERSE AND OF MAN. 



CHAPTER I. 



bCMMAiii : Comparative study of the Macrocosm 
and Microcosm. — There are two uncontested elements 
in both the one and the other. — The matter of the hu- 
man body is the same as ambient matter. — We are 
the grandchildren of the Sun. — The forces of the hu- 
man body are borrowed from Universal Energy. — As 
far as matter and energy, Man is eternal. — The 
Method of Reasoning for the search of the Third Ele- 
ment. — It is within himself that Man finds the ex- 
planation of the Universe. — Intelligence exists in the 
world. — Intelligence, Energy, Matter. — An insur- 
mountable dilemma. — Arguments gathered from cere- 
bral lesions in favor of materialistic ideas. — Specious 
arguments. — Experimentation only is able to bring 
about an agreement. — Are there any material proofs 
of the existence of the Soul? 

Page 79 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 283 



CHAPTER II. 

Summary: A retrospective glance. — Commate- 
rial and Abmaterial existence of Intelligence. — Intel- 
ligence is independent of Matter. — So-called Spiritu- 
alistic phenomena support this thesis. — Many great 
things remain for us to learn. — There is no knowl- 
edge without work. — The difference between those 
who think and those who reflect upon nothing. — The 
hour of scientific appreciation. — It has chimed for 
each thing, in its time. — The Procustean bed of ideas 
and facts. — The time has gone by when we had to be- 
gin by proving the existence of psychical facts. — In- 
telligent and Scientific investigations are not lacking; 
wherefore we need no longer seek to convince, espe- 
cially those who refuse to be convinced. 

Page 91 



CHAPTER III. 

A STUDY OF THE PSYCHICAL CONSTITUTION OF 

MAN. 

Summary: The genesis of man is a microscopical 
action. — It is a simple fact, but a great one. — The 
hypotheses of the pre-existence and of the non-pre- 
existence of the mind over the body. — The hypothesis 
of the parallel formation of the mind and the body is 
an injustice. — One can no more see Energy than on€ 
can see Intelligence; nothing but their effects are per- 
ceived. — How can we demonstrate the independence 



284 TABLE OF CONTENTS 



of the mind? — An unknown thing supposed to D6 
known. — A certain part of the faculties of the mind 
is immobilized within certain functions which are in- 
ferior to those of Intelligence. — The mechanism of 
the action of the mind upon the nervous cells. — The 
polyzoism of Durand de Gros. — Facts which show 
that the mind may receive communications from other 
sources than the ordinary ones of the organs. — 
Dreams. 

Page 105 



CHAPTER IV. 

Summary: The general ignorance about hypno- 
tism. — If people knew better how to make use of 
that state they would obtain wonderful results. — But 
there is great danger in experimenting, in the actual 
state of ignorance of the laws which rule the various 
constituting principles of man. — The force emitted by 
the human body under the influence of will, and act- 
ing at a distance. — Experiments upon the transmis- 
sion of thought and sight through space. — Different 
states or degrees of Hypnosis. — These conditions are 
but phases of the gradual tendency towards the dis- 
sociation of the person. — Theory of sight, hearing, 
etc., at a distance. — Phantasma of the living. — A very 
interesting and instructive observation of the disso- 
ciation of the person. 

Page 123 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 285 



CHAPTER V. 

Summary. — Phenomenal psychology. — It is des- 
tined to teach man his real nature. — Mediums: "What 
are they? — Opinions of the scientist de Rochas upon 
certain undefined forces. — Animic, ethereal, astral 
and psychical forces. — Occasional visibility of Animic 
force. — Different varieties of abmaterializing subjects. 
— Usual passiveness of mediumnity. — Its impulsive- 
ness and suggestibility. — Facts about fascination. — 
The yoghis, as described by an Arabic author, 600 
years ago. — The yoghis of to-day. — Resurrection of a 
yoghi after a voluntary burial lasting for several 
months. — There are "miracles" in all religions. — 
What should the scientist's opinion be on this sub- 
ject? 

Page 1^7 



CHAPTER VI. 

Summary: Supra-ordinary power and new facul- 
ties which man may acquire. — The dangers of train- 
ing which must be undergone for that purpose. — A re- 
cent and actual example of these dangers; a whole 
association of mysticists giving themselves up to 
most immoral procedures. — The danger presented by 
Spiritualistic seances and in general psychical re- 
searches undertaken without method. — Inferior intel- 
ligences seize upon the animic force of mediums. — 
Great danger in seances held in the dark. — Facts up- 



286 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



holding this statement. — One experimenter well nigh 
mortally wounded, another severely hurt. — Other 
facts personally observed by the author. — Advice upon 
the matter. 

Page 185 



CHAPTER VII. 

Summary. — Why it is that after his first re- 
searches the author advanced no theory and held to 
the ground of facts. — A letter from an editor of the 
"Journal des Debats." — Materializations. — Mouldings 
and photographs of animic forms. — Why Scientists, as 
a rule, wish to say nothing about these phenomena. — 
Three interviews with Prof. Vulpian, Charcot and Pas- 
teur. — The proof established that man possesses an in- 
telligence that survives the body. — Mechanism of 
death. — It has two periods: 1. The stage of intellectual 
secession. 2. The stage of animic death. — The cells of 
the body are individuals living by and in us, just as 
we live by and in the Macrocosm. — The living cell 
contains animic energy, that is to say, Energy in 
evolution toward intelligence; it assimilates, disas- 
similates, and remembers. — Pathological immunity is 
a phenomenon of cellular memory. — An unpublished 
case of so-called veridic hallucination. — The last 
words of dying Hermes. 

Page 207 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 287 



PART FOURTH. 

THE INFLUENCE OF "FUTURE SCIENCE" 

UPON RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, 

SCIENCE, THE ARTS, ETC. 



CHAPTER I. 

Summary. — The disturbances and revolutions which 
the new data of Science are to cause in the various 
branches of Human Intellectuality. — Perturbation in re- 
ligious opinions. — Great Pan is dead ; long live the Great 
Pan. — The new religion. — The legend of the stones. — The 
cycle of religions, or the cycle of religion-science. — Dis- 
turbances in the sciences, in Medicine, in Biology. — The 
arts, and especially literature, are beginning to show the 
influence of the " Science of To-Morrow." — A synthetical 
and retrospective glance. — Conduct of the Wise. — The end. 

Page • 261 



11 



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